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SOLOMON STURGES 

AND HIS DESCENDANTS 



o^ivoid > ni n-iAM: 



odfi .J5L 



Solomon Sturges 

^t. about 04. From a Photograph taken in Chicago 

by Fassett, about 1860 



SOLOMON STURGES 

AND HIS DESCENDANTS 

A Memoir 
and a Genealogy 



COMPILED BY 

EBENEZER BUCKINGHAM 




THE GRAFTON PRESS 

GENEALOGICAL PUBLISHERS 
NEW YORK MCMVII 






I LIBRARY of OON37:^3s1 
Two Copies Krtei\<i: 

DEC 26 .907 

j CLASS <>. XXt. Wo 
8 OOP^ B. 



Copyright igo-j by 
THE GRAFTON PRESS 






CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Acknowledgement 9 

Memoir of Solomon Sturges 

I. His ancestry 13 

II. His early life 23 

III. His later life 33 

Recollections of Lucy Hale Sturges by Kate Sturges 

Benton 45 

Genealogy of the Descendants of Solomon Sturges . 55 

Index gl 

Genealogical Tables 

I. Ancestors of Solomon Sturges 22 

II. Ancestors of Lucy Hale Sturges 52 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Solomon Sturges, set. about 64 — From a photograph taken 
in Chicago by Fassett, about 1860 Frontispiece 

Sarah Perry Sturges, set. about 75 — From the portrait 
painted toward the end of her life 20 

Solomon Sturges, set. about 39 — From the portrait painted 
about 1835, in the possession of Mrs. Buckingham Sturges 
— The window in the background affords a gUmpse of the 
old mill and wooden bridge across the Muskingum at 
Zanesville, Ohio, and the " dug road " under the bluff on 
the Putnam side of the river 26 ^ 

Lucy Hale Sturges, set. about 35 — From the portrait 
painted about 1835, in the possession of Mrs. Bucking- 
ham Sturges 30 ^ 

Solomon Sturges — From the marble bust by Hiram Pow- 
ers, in the possession of Mrs. Buckingham Sturges ... 32 ^ 

The Residence of Solomon Sturges at the northeast cor- 
ner of Pine and Huron streets, Chicago — This building 
was burned in the great Chicago fire of 1871 36 

Solomon and Lucy Hale Sturges — From a daguerreo- 
type taken about 1855 40 

Lucy Hale Sturges, set. about 56 — From the portrait 

by Pine, in the possession of Mrs. Benton 46 ^ 

7 



8 List of Illustrations 

PAGE 

The Presbyterian Church at Putnam, Ohio — From an 
engraving made from a photograph taken before changes 
were made in the building which materially alter its ap- 
pearance 48 

The Residence of Solomon Sturges at Putnam, Ohio . 50 

Solomon Sturges, set. about 60 — From the portrait by 
Healy, in the possession of Mrs. Benton 58 

The Nine Children of Solomon and Lucy Hale Stur- 
ges — From a photograph taken in Chicago, about 1868 . 62 

The Sturges Monument in Woodlawn Cemetery, Zanes- 
ville, Ohio 68 

Monument erected in Woodlawn Cemetery, Zanesville, 
Ohio, by Solomon Sturges, to the memory of his ancestors 72 



ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 

The compiler desires to thank the several members of the Stur- 
ges family, and others, who have kindly furnished him with in- 
formation. And in particular he wishes to express his grateful 
appreciation of the charming and sympathetic sketch of Mrs. 
Lucy Hale Sturges contributed by her daughter, Mrs. Kate Sturges 
Benton; and his deep obhgation to Mr. Charles Mathews Sturges 
for his cordial co-operation and efficient aid in gathering the mate- 
rial together, and to Mr. Frederick W. Gookin for his invaluable 
services in preparing the manuscript and seeing the book through 
the press. To Mr. James Buckingham especial thanks are due 
for the tables of the ancestors of Solomon and Lucy Hale Sturges. 



MEMOIR OF 

SOLOMON STURGES 



MEMOIR OF SOLOMON STURGES 



HIS ANCESTRY 

Solomon Sturges was born April 21, 1796, in Fairfield, Connec- 
ticut, where his ancestors had lived for five generations. They 
were farmers of the sturdy New England type; upright, industrious, 
frugal. God-fearing and law-abiding. John Sturges, the first of 
the family in Fairfield, was living there in 1660, when he bought 
land in the town as noted later in these pages, and it is quite pos- 
sible that his residence there may have long antedated that pur- 
chase. Owing to the destruction of many of the ancient records 
the exact date may never be determined, but the probabilities would 
seem to indicate that if he were not one of the little group of set- 
tlers by whom Fairfield was founded in 1639, he was among the 
very early comers there. 

According to the family tradition, John Sturges was bom in 
1624, probably in England. Nothing is known with certainty as 
to his parentage. Full records showing his English extraction are 
said to have been in the hands of his great-great-grandson. Judge 
Jonathan Sturges ^ of Fairfield, and to have been destroyed, with 

1 Judge Sturges was born in Fairfield, August 23, 1740; graduated from Yale 
College, 1759; member of Revolutionary Committee of Public Safety for Connecti- 
cut; delegate from Connecticut to the Colonial Congress in 1774; representative 
from Connecticut in the U. S. Congress from 1789 to 1792; judge of the Supreme 
Court of Connecticut from 1792 to 1805; LL.D. Yale College, 1806; died in Fair- 
field, October 4, 1819. He was descended from John Sturges through his eldest 
son Jonathan,2 who married Susannah Banks and had Jonathan,3 who married 

13 



14 Solomon Sturges 

other family papers, when the Judge's home was burned by the 
British troops in 1779. It has been surmised that John Sturges 
was a son of Edward Sturgis, or Sturges,^ eldest son of Philip Sturgis 
of Faxton, Northamptonshire, who em'grated to New England in or 
about 1634, in which year he settled in Sandwich, Massachusetts, 
where he resided until 1639, when he removed to Yarmouth, Cape 
Cod. He had a large family, but owing to deficiencies in the early 
records it is uncertain whether the list of his children, twelve in num- 
ber, some of whom were born in England, is complete. The suppo- 
sition that John Sturges o Fairfield was his son, must, however, be 
dismissed as untenable if the tradition that John was bom in 1624 
is accurate, for Edward had a son of the same name who was bom 
on April 10 of that year. It is therefore probable that if Edward 
and John were kinsmen, the relationship between them was that 
of cousin, or perhaps that of uncle and nephew, rather than that 
of father and son. 

In the year 1660, John Sturges purchased the homestead of 
Richard Fowles in Fairfield, which appears to have been located 
on the northwest side of the highway leading into Mill Plain. He 
was made a freeman on May 14, 1669. Later in the same year he 
was appointed Selectman. His wife was Deborah Barlow, daugh- 
ter of John Barlow, one of the most prominent of the early settlers 
in Fairfield. No record of the marriage has been found, so that 
the date and locality of its solemnization remain undetermined, 
but, from the traditional ages of the children born of the union, it 
would seem probable that it took place at a date prior at least to 
1650. Although John Barlow, strangely enough as it now seems, ^ 
was not made a freeman until May 14, 1669, when his name 

Sarah Osborne and had Samuel * who married, 1st, his cousin Elizabeth Sturges, 
daughter of David,3 and 2d, Ann Burr, the Judge's mother. Samuel Sturges' elder 
brother Jonathan* married Jerusha Thompson; their daughter Sarah married 
Lothrop Lewis in 1727, and had Deborah Lewis, born in 1742, who became the 
wife of Judge Sturges. 

1 The name appears to have been spelled both ways indifferently in the early 
seventeenth century. 

2 The explanation may be that he had not become a member of the church until 
that year. In the early New England settlements none but church members were 
accorded full rights of citizenship. 



His Ancestry 15 

heads the hst of those adniitted, followed by that of his son-in-law, 
John Sturges, he appears to have been a resident of the town be- 
fore 1653, in which year he sold his lot on Ludlow Square, ad- 
joining the Roger Ludlow homestead, and settled on the plain 
running northwest of Ludlow Square and Concord Field, which, 
in his honor was called "Barlow's Plain." In his will, dated 
March 28, 1674, he disposed of what was then regarded as a 
large estate, dividing it between his son and five daughters, Deb- 
orah, wife of John Sturges, being named among the latter. 

John Sturges died in the year 1700, aged, so runs the family 
tradition, about 76. In his will, dated March 4, 169f, he gave 
to his son Jonathan, his homestead, his sword, and various parcels 
of land. To his son Joseph he gave his fowling piece, his long 
gun, and several parcels of land; to his son John, his little gun; to 
his daughter Deborah, wife of James Redfield, several parcels of 
land and his negro woman Jenny; to his grandson Christopher 
Sturges 51. ; to his son-in-law Richard Straten 5s., and to said 
Straten's five children by his daughter Sarah, 5l. to be equally 
divided between them out of his movable estate; to his daughter 
Abigail, wife of Simon Couch, his negro boy Jack. The rest of 
his movable estate he divided between his two daughters Deborah 
and Abigail. To his absent son Thomas, "if he ever returned 
again," he gave 60/. out of the rest of his children's property. 
From this instrument, therefore, it appears that John and Deb- 
orah (Barlow) Sturges had at least seven ^ children, viz. : 

I. Jonathan Sturges, 
II. Joseph Sturges, 

III. John Sturges, 

IV. Thomas Sturges, 

V. Deborah Sturges, who married James Redfield, 
VI. Sarah Sturges, who married Richard Stratton, 
VII. Abigail Sturges, who married Simon Couch. 

1 In "The Dimon Family," page 31, No. 42, it is stated that a "Mary Sturges, 
daughter of John Sturges" was married in 1719 to Ebenezer Bradley, but that 
statement involves such discrepancies in dates as would seem to make it substan- 
tially impossible that she could have been a daughter of John and Deborah (Bar- 



16 Solomon Sturges 

Jonathan Sturges, the eldest son, married Susannah Banks, 
daughter of John Banks. According to the family tradition Jona- 
than's birth occurred in 1650; and that of Joseph in or about 
1653. Little is known about Joseph Sturges, except that all his 
life was spent upon his farm in Fairfield, where he died in 1728, 
aged about 75. He was married twice. His first wife, who ap- 
pears to have been the mother of all of his eleven children,^ was 
Sarah Judson, daughter of Jeremiah and Sarah (Foote) Judson. 
After her death he took as a second helpmeet, Mary Sherwood, 
widow of Thomas Morehouse. She survived him, dying in 1746 
aged about seventy-seven years. 

The fifth son of Joseph and Sarah (Judson) Sturges, was Solo- 
mon, who was baptized in Fairfield, May 15, 1698, and was proba- 
bly bom a little earher in the same year.^ On March 8, 172|, 
he married his second cousin Abigail Bradley, who was the daugh- 
ter, born in 1706, of Daniel and Abigail (Jackson) Bradley of 
Fairfield, and granddaughter of Francis Bradley, whose wife, 
Ruth Barlow, was a sister of Deborah Barlow, who married John 
Sturges. By her Solomon had three sons, Hezekiah, Joseph, and 
Judson, and a daughter, Esther, who married William Dimon. 

low) Sturges, though she may have been the daughter of their son John — number 
ii in the list here given — who married, 1st, Mary Gardiner, and ^d, Abigail Wheeler. 

1 In the " Complete Lineage of the Sturges Families," by Alonzo Walton Sturges, 
these children are named as follows: 

I. Christopher Sturges 

II. Joseph Sturges 

III. David Sturges, b. 1696 

IV. Jeremiah Sturges 

V. Solomon Sturges, b. 1698 
VI. Sarah S. Sturges, b. 1699 
VII. Esther L. Sturges, b. 1700 
VIII. Benjamin Sturges, b. 1701 
IX. Abigail O. Sturges, b. 1702 
X. Jane Sturges, b. 1703 
XI. Deborah Sturges, b. 1708 

2 If the family tradition that he was eighty-sbc at the time of his death in 1779 
is correct, it fixes the date of his birth in 1693. But against this is the fact that his 
four elder brothers were baptized together on May 24, 1696, and if Solomon were 
then three years old it seems highly probable that his parents would have had 
him baptized with the others. 



His Ancestry 17 

Solomon Sturges was described by his grandchildren as a man 
of ardent temperament, a hater of all forms of tyranny and oppres- 
sion, alert in mind and body, and notably "spry" in his move- 
ments. Living in a thriving community, surrounded by numerous 
relatives, his days passed quietly enough until the outbreak of 
the war of the revolution, by which he, in common with the colon- 
ists in general, was stirred to the depths. He was too old for cam- 
paigning, but all of his sons took an active part in the struggle; 
Hezekiah was a captain, Joseph was captured by the British and 
died on a prison ship in New York, Judson was killed in an en- 
counter with tories on Long Island Sound. Solomon himself met 
with a tragic fate when on July 7, 1779, the British troops under 
General Tryon landed at Fairfield and pillaged and burned the 
town. The account of this brutal affair, as related by Bancroft,^ 
gives such a graphic picture of the Fairfield of that day that it may 
well find a place in these pages. 

" A pillaging expedition, sent to punish the patriotism of Con- 
necticut, was intrusted to Tryon. . . . On the afternoon of the 
seventh, the expedition landed near Fairfield. The village, a 
century and a quarter old, situated near the water, with a lovely 
country for its background, contained all that was best in a New 
England community: a moral, well-educated, industrious people; 
modest affluence; well-ordered homes; many freeholders as heads 
of families; all of unmixed lineage, speaking the language of the 
English Bible. Early Puritanism had smoothed its rugged fea- 
tures under the influence of a region so cheerful and benign; and 
an Episcopal church, that stood by the side of the larger meeting- 
house, proved their toleration. A parish so prospering, with in- 
habitants so cultivated, had not in that day its parallel in England, 
The husbandmen who came together were too few to withstand 
the unforeseen onslaught. The Hessians were the first who were 
let loose to plunder, and every dwelling was given up to be stripped. 
Just before the sun went down, the firing of houses began, and was 
kept up through the night with little opposition, amidst the vain 
* cries of distressed women and helpless children.' Early the next 
1 " History of America," Ed. 1876, vol. vi, pp. 209-210. 



18 Solomon Sturges 

morning, the conflagration was made general. When at the return 
of night the retreat was sounded, the rear-guard, composed of 
Germans, set in flames the meeting-house and every private habi- 
tation that till then had escaped." 

Still vigorous and active in spite of his years, when he heard that 
the British were disembarking Solomon Sturges mounted his 
horse and set oflF toward the beach, probably to attempt to rescue 
his cattle, though perhaps for the purpose indicated in the follow- 
ing account of the tragedy that followed. This account was written 
in his later years by Solomon's great-grandson and namesake, the 
subject of this memoir, and embodies the family tradition about 
the affair as related during the writer's boyhood by those who were 
eyewitnesses of the British attack. 

"My father in my early days, often repeated the story of the 
dreadful day and more dreadful night that the enemy had posses- 
sion of the town. My great-grandfather Solomon Sturges was too 
old to fight in the ranks of our small army; but in concert with 
another old man (both on horseback) endeavoured to make him- 
self useful by acting as a scout. Upon hearing the alarm gun he at 
once mounted his old bay mare and proceeded toward the beach 
where it was said the British were landing their troops from their 
ships of war. . . . There was then, and I presume there is yet, 
an offset or turn in the road leading to the Sound, a few hundred 
yards south of the old Fairfield burying ground. My great-grand- 
father and his companion had made this turn and had advanced 
but two or three rods down the beach lane when they discovered 
through the fog the red coats of the British soldiers close upon them. 
They wheeled their horses and as they did so were fired at by the 
front platoon of the column, and my great-grandfather received a 
musket ball in his back. He was able, however, to remain on his 
horse until he had passed the Court House, and his companion 
who being unhurt was enabled to ride ahead, saw him carefully 
get from his old mare on and over the fence and (being no doubt 
entirely unable to walk) creep upon his hands and knees to a bunch 
of elder bushes by the roadside. The precise spot was pointed 
out to me by my father, in my early hfe; it was between the jail 



His Ancestry 19 

(then upon the corner east of the big pond) and the academy. 
The old gentleman companion then rode rapidly to my grand- 
father's house and reported to the excited household these facts. 
While he was yet speaking the old bay mare came to the house. 
The saddle was almost covered with blood. The tale it told, 
though mute, was expressive. All was confusion, and all were 
filled with alarm. Other places had been burnt and all knew too 
well what the fate of Fairfield was to be. My grandfather and 
several of his older sons had before this seized their guns and gone 
to the rendezvous of their company. Two carts were hastily loaded 
with the most valuable household goods and the women and young- 
est children being placed in the carts or walking by the side, the 
cavalcade moved off toward Greenfield Hill. . . . The Hessians 
applied the torch to both of my grandfathers' houses. . . . The 
enemy, if I remember aright, held possession of the town but 
little over twenty-four hours. Our forces being rapidly increased 
by the coming in of the militia from the surrounding towns were 
busy popping away from behind stone fences, cedar bushes or 
anything that afforded concealment or protection. As soon as 
the enemy commenced a retreat toward their ships my grand- 
father and his sons were on hand to search for 'grandfather 
Solomon ' as he was of course called by my father and his brothers. 
They knew where to look and found him in that thicket of elder 
bushes, dead, yes of course, with one bullet hole and six or seven 
severe bayonet stabs. He was without doubt found by those in- 
fernal Hessians, with life yet not quite extinct, and finished with 
the bayonet." ^ 

The members of the Sturges family were large sufferers by the 
British raid on Fairfield. Their pecuniary losses have been esti- 
mated at five hundred pounds sterling,^ in those days a large sum 
in such a community. It is said that the invading troops had a 
merry feast in the house of Captain Hezekiah Sturges during the 

1 See letter by Rev. Andrew Eliot of Fairfield, written at the time of this outrage, 
printed in Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections, Vol. Ill, Series I, and in " History of Fair- 
field County." 

2 See " Complete Lineage of the Sturges Families," by Alonzo Walton Sturges. 



20 Solomon Sturges 

night they spent on shore. When they left they set the dwelHng 
afire and it was burned to the ground. The next winter Hezekiah 
hauled timber and in the spring began to build anew. He put up 
the frame for a large house and finished it gradually as time and 
his means permitted. The kitchen ran the length of the house and 
above it was a room of equal dimensions, the use of which was 
accorded by him to the Episcopalians for public worship until 
they were able to rebuild their church which the " red coats " had 
destroyed. That courtesy illustrates a liberality in religious tolera- 
tion which has been characteristic of the Sturges blood, for Heze- 
kiah was, it is understood, of long descended Puritan beliefs, and 
the courtesy was extended at a day when in New England those of 
Puritan stock were often imbued with dislike and even hatred of 
the Church of England, identified in their minds with the persecu- 
tions to escape which their forefathers had fled to America. 

Hezekiah Sturges was born in Fairfield in 1726, and died there 
April 27, 1792, " in the 67th year of his age " says the inscription 
upon his tombstone. His wife, whom he married on November 21, 
1751, was Abigail Dimon, who was born in Fairfield, February 1, 
173f, and died there on November 21, 1803, the fifty-second 
anniversary of her wedding day. She was the daughter of Ebenezer 
and Mary (Burr) Dimon of Fairfield, the granddaughter of Moses 
and Jane (Pinkney) Dimon of Fairfield, the great-granddaughter 
of Moses and Abigail (Ward) ^ Dimon of Fairfield, and the great- 
great-granddaughter of Thomas Dimon (or Dimond or Demman), 
mariner, of Pequonnock, now North Bridgeport. Through her 
mother Abigail was a descendant of John Barlow, and was, there- 
fore, her husband's first cousin. The Sturges and Dimon families 
were very closely interrelated. Sarah Dimon, Abigail's younger 
sister, married Hezekiah's brother Joseph Sturges, and her brother 
William Dimon married his sister, Esther Sturges. 

Hezekiah and Abigail (Dimon) Sturges had nine children : Ebene- 
zer, born August 8, 1752, was a sea captain, and died in Jamaica, of 
smallpox, December 25, 1795; Dimon, of whom more presently; 

1 Abigail Ward was the daughter of Andrew and Hester, or Esther (Sherman) 
Ward of Fairfield. 



Sarah Perry Sturges 
Mt. about 75. From the Portrait painted toward the end of her Ufa 



His Ancestry 21 

Hezekiah, bom November 24, 1756, died unmarried, December 16, 
1839 ; Solomon, born February 10, 1759, died aged about forty years, 
was found dead in his berth on the arrival of his vessel in Boston ; 
Eunice, born July 31, 1761, who married Nathaniel Perry of Fair- 
field; Edward, born December 2, 1762 (or 1763), died August 25, 
1826, and Samuel, born March 1, 1766, both of whom, as well as 
Hezekiah, lived in Fairfield; Abigail, born May 9, 1768, who mar- 
ried Allen Nichols of Fairfield; and Mary (or Polly), born Septem- 
ber 3, 1770, and died in New York city at a great old age, who 
married her kinsman. Captain Barnabas Lothrop Sturges of South- 
port, and was the mother of Jonathan Sturges, the wealthy New 
York merchant. 

Dimon Sturges, the second of these children, was born in Fair- 
field, October 29, 1754, and after a long and for the most part an 
uneventful hfe, died there January 16, 1829. He married Sarah 
Perry daughter of Ebenezer and Martha (Sherwood) Perry of 
Fairfield. "My father and mother," their son Solomon wrote 
many years afterward, " as I always understood, had agreed about 
their life partnership before the breaking out of the revolutionary 
war, but after the commencement of hostilities, their marriage was 
postponed for brighter prospects and they were not married until 
a short time before Fairfield was burned. My grandfather Sturges 
was rendered poor by losses suffered during the revolutionary 
struggle. My grandfather Perry had not suffered as much, as the 
Hessians and Tories did not get quite as far north as his residence 
in their work of destruction. It was as much as both of them could 
well accomplish to build a house, barn, etc., for father and get the 
young couple fixed comfortably at housekeeping." 

Sarah (Perry) Sturges was bom in Fairfield, September 21, 1761, 
and died in Mansfield, Ohio, at the residence of her son Edward, 
May 7, 1846. 

Dimon and Sarah (Perry) Sturges had ten children all born in 
Fairfield: Mary (or Polly), the eldest, was born March 4, 1780, 
and died at the age of seven; Esther, the second daughter, was 
born January 24, 1782, and died, unmarried, in Putnam, Ohio, 
September 28, 1829; Eben Perry, the eldest son, was born Au- 



\ 



22 Solomon Sturges 

gust 12, 1784, and died in Mansfield, Ohio, January 1, 1862; 
Sarah, the third daughter, was born December 4, 1786, was mar- 
ried March 31, 1812, to Ebenezer Buckingham of Putnam, Ohio, 
and died there April 9, 1815; Dimon, the second son, was born 
April 11, 1789, and was lost at sea, being swept from the deck of 
his vessel in a storm, on November 4, 1808; Mary, the fourth 
daughter, was born November 23, 1791, was married to Chester 
Welles of Putnam, Ohio, and died there September 27, 1858; 
Hezekiah, the third son, was born January 3, 1794, and died in 
Putnam, Ohio, July 29, 1878; Solomon, the fourth son and the 
subject of this memoir, was bom April 21, 1796; Ameha, the fifth 
daughter, was bom November 5, 1799, was married to Austin A. 
Guthrie of Putnam, Ohio, and died there September 3, 1882; 
Edward, the fifth son and youngest child, was bom December 5, 
1805, and died in Mansfield, Ohio, September 16, 1878. 



ph Sturges 
1653; d. 1728 



ih Judson 



iel Bradley, 
1673 



;ail Jackson 



es Dimon, b. 
ct. 7, 1672; 
. Aug. 7. 1748 



Pinkney 



1 Butr 



orah Barlow 



haniel Perry 
1652; d. 1682 



ter Lyon 



hael Clagston 
Sept. 18, 1678 



■y Wakeman 
, July 23, 1710 



luel Sherwood, 
• 172s 



32 f John Sturges 

b. 1624; d. 1700 
5 5 L Deborah Barlow 



J4 r Jeremiah Judson 



JS I Sarah Foote 



j6 f Francis Bradley, 

b. 1627 
J7 I, Ruth Barlow, d. 1689 



}8 r Joseph Jackson 

1 
39 [ Mary Godwin 



40 



r Moses Dimon 

b. 1642; d. 1684 



,, [ Abigail Ward 

-2 f Philip Pinkney 

.. r Nathaniel Burr 
44 ' 



66 f John Barlow 

67 [ Ann 

68 r William Judson 
"I 

69 L Grace 

70 r Nathaniel Foote 

71 I Elizabeth Deming 



76 I }lenry Jackson 

77 [ 

78 r George Godwin 

79 '[ 

80 , Thomas Dimon 
8. I 

82 I Andrew Ward, d. 1665 



,j [ Hannah Goodyear 



46 



John Barlow 



,y [ Abigail Lockwood 

Richard Perry, d. 1658 



TT .. cu lAA 1 Kcv. J. Sherman 

Hester Sherman 166 J ^ j^^^. ^j^ ^g^^ 



88 , John Burr 

89 1 • Stedman 

90 I Stephen Goodyear 

9' I 

9^ r John Barlow 

9? t Ann 

94 f Robert Lockwood 

95 [ Susan St. John 



49 

CQ r Richard Lyon, d. 1678 

51 

52 
S3 
54 f Lieut. Joseph Wakeman 



nelius Hull 



55 l Elizabeth Burr 

56 f Thomas Sherwood, 
1 b. 1637 

57 [ Ann Turney 
58 

59 

5o f Cornelius Hull 

d. Mar. 14, 1737 



61 i Rebecca Jones, d. 1744 

62 r Ezekiel Sanford 



•ah Sanford 

). March 25, 1666 



108 f Rev. Samuel Wakeman 

109 i Hannah Goodyear 
no f Major John Burr 
iji [ Susan Filet 

112 r Thomas Sherwood 

,,3 t Alice 

114 r Benjamin Turney 
,15 i Mary ■ 



120 r G'-orge Hull, d. Aug. 
i 22, 1614 

121 [ Thomazin Mitchell 

122 f Rev. John Jones 
123 

124 f Thomas Sanford 
125 



HO f Thomas Hull 

241 !_ 



*48 ( Anthony Sanford 
»49 1 



6? 



Rebecca Mickle 



CJENEALOGICAL lABLK 

OF THE 

ANCESTORS OF SOLOMON STURGES 

Compiled bv James Buckingham 
of Zanesville, Ohio 



U f John Slurges 
15 I Joseph Sturees 6.1624:11.1700 

b. 1653: a. 1728 HI Deborah Barlow 



S ( Solomon Sturges 
b. 1698 (perhaprf 
>693) 

d. July 7. 



779 17 [ Sarah Juds^ 



Double the number before any n-Atni: and you ha 
Ibat of the father; aJd one to the doubled number ai 
you have that of the mother. 



♦ [ Captain Hezekiah Sturges .( ra. Mar. 8. ,.724-f 

I li. , 1726 

(I. Apr. 27, 1792 



Polly Sturges 
b. Mar. 4, 1780 
d. May 2, 1787 

Esther Sturges 
b. Jan. 24, 1782 
d. Sept. 28, 1829 

Eben Perry Sturges 
b. Aug. 12, 1784 
d. Jan, I, 1762 
ni. 1st, Ainanda Bucking* 

ham 
m. 2d, Terusha Merrick 

Hale 
m. 3d, Ruth M, Tracy 

Sarah Sturges 
b. Dec. 4, 1786 
d. Apr. 9, 1815 
m. Ebcnezer Biickinghain 

nimon Sturges 
b. Apr. II, 1789 
d. Nov. 4, 1 80S 

Mary Sturges 
b. Nov. 23, 1791 
d. Sept. 27, 1858 
m. Chester Welles 

Hezekiah Sturges 
b. Jail. 3, 1794 
d. July 29, 1878 



Solomon Sturges 
b. Apr. 21. 1795 
d. 0.t. I.,, ,U.i 



.\melia Sturges 
b. Nov. 5, ,79 
d. Sept. 3, 188 
m. Austin A. ( 

Kdward .Sturges 
b. Dec. 10, 181 
Sept. 16, 187 



sept. 16, 1878 
Mary Mattiie 



niiiioii Sturges 
b. Oct. 29, 1754 
d. Jan. 16. 1829 



.\bigail Dimon 
';■ F'^b. I, 1732-3 
d. Nov. 21, 1803 



Ebcnezer Perry 



Sarah Perry 
b. Sept. 21, 1761 
d. May 7, 1846 



.Abigail Bradley 



18 r Daniel Bradley, 
b. 1673 



19 I .Abigail Jackson 



i4 I Jeremiah Judson 

i 
)S I .Sarah Footc 

}<> I Francis Bradley. 

\ b. 1627 
!7 I Kuth Barlow, d. 16 

)8 f Josciih Jackson 
!9 I Mary Godwin 



40 



M 



Dimon 
b. 1642: d. 1684 



« f Moses Dimon, b. 

Oct. 7. 1672; I 

d. Aug. 7, 1748 41 [ Abigail Ward 



Ebenezer Dimon 1 

b. , 1704 

d. May 28, 1746 11 [ Jane Pinkney 



I .Mary Burr 

bap. Jan. 4, 1708 
d. Sept. 12, 1766 



Deborah Barlow 



^j f Philip Pinkney 

.„ r .Nathaniel Burr 
.^j I Hannah Coodyear 
.,6 f John M.irlow 
.,7 ( Abigail I.ockwood 



f Joseph Perry ] 



^8 [ Richard Perry, d. 1658 
14 f Nathaniel Perry { 

I b. 1652; d. 1682 49 I 

50 f Richard Lyon, d. 1678 



»6 f Michael Clagston \ 

b. Sept. iS. 1678 5) I 



65 r John Barlow 

57 [ Ann 

58 I William Judson 

69 [ Grace - - - - 

70 [ Nathaniel Foote 

71 I Elizabeth Deming 



75 , Henry J.ackson 

77} 

78 r Ceorge (Godwin 

79 1 

So J Thomas Dimon 

81 I 

8» I .Andrew Ward, d. 1665 



8)1 Hester Sherman 166 J ^^"- J- Sherman 

1 b. 1613; d. 1675 



88 I John' Burr 

»9 ( Stcdman 

90 I Stephen Coodyear 
9.1 

91 ( John Barlow 
9! I Ann 

94 I Robert Lockwood 
95] Susan St. John 



el Sherwood 

, 1708 

■ 1784 



Mary Wakeman 
Z7 I d. July 23, 1710 



a8 f Samuel Sherwood, 
d. 1725 



Cornelius Hull 



14 f Lieut. Joseph Wakeman 
55 I Elizabeth Burr 



55 f Thomas Sherwood, 
1 b. 1637 



57 I Ann Turnev 



59 



60 ( Cornelius Hull 

d. Mar. 14, 1737 



Sarah Sanford 

h. March 25, 1666 



61 [ Rebecca Jones, d. 1744 
61 r Ezekiel Sanford 
6) I Reliccca Mickle 



108 I Rev. Samuel Wakema 

109 I, Hannah (ioodycar 
no f Major John Burr 
Hit Susan Filet 

111 J Thomas Sherwood 
iij I .Mice — — 

114 ( Benjamin Turney 

115 I Mary 

ilo f r. orge Hull, d. Aug. 

\ 21, 1614 
III L Thomazin Mitchell 

ilij Rev. John Jones 

'»i I 

114 [ Thomas Sanford 



H° J Thomas Hull 
H. [ 



•^ I Anthony Sanford 



n 



HIS EARLY LIFE 



An old man's recollections of his boyhood, even if incomplete, 
or, it may be, inaccurate in all details, are usually faithful in their 
presentation of the outward aspect of the things recalled to memory. 

"My father's house," wrote Solomon Sturges toward the end 
of his life, " was nearly of square form. The kitchen was not only 
for cooking, but was used alternately as a kitchen and a dining 
room. There was an enormous chimney in the centre of the house, 
the whole west side of which was occupied by the kitchen, fireplace, 
and the oven at the north end of it. It has been over thirty years 
since I saw it, but I think the width of the fireplace was not less 
than eight feet. . . . When the neighbors came in on a winter 
evening, and I had been sent with the old ' grandfather tankard ' 
into the cellar to fill it with cider, after I had waited upon the circle 
ranged round the fire, I would take a seat upon a stool within one 
of the jambs of the fireplace, while my brother Hezekiah or Ed- 
ward would occupy the opposite corner. Then the exploits of 
the Revolutionary War would be rehearsed. All the men had 
participated in one battle or another; some fierce encounter by 
land or water. How many stories of skirmishes with the Tories 
that came over from Long Island in whale boats ! What one did 
not know or recollect another would. 

" My mother and elder sisters would be busy at various house- 
hold employments. When nothing more important was to be 
done the spinning wheels were brought forward and it was no un- 
common thing for three of them to be going at once. My mother 



24 Solomon Sturges 

was a worker. She was an excellent housekeeper and she was as 
good as she was industrious. She was all softness to her children. 
She loved us so dearly that she could not bear to give us pain, and 
I have no doubt that her extreme tender-heartedness and maternal 
love saved me from many a deserved whipping. 

"My father kept a flock of sheep, the wool from which was 
manufactured in the family and furnished our winter clothing. 
Flax was a staple product, and its preparation and manufacture 
into linen was no small part of the winter employment of the house- 
hold. All the shirting and sheeting of the household was of linen, 
all the summer wear of the boys and much of that of the girls. 
Long checked aprons, made for use, were a common article of 
dress. My mother understood the art of colouring the fabrics made 
in the household, and occasionally a piece of carpeting was made. 
Breaking and dressing flax was a common employment, in the 
winter days, for my father and my elder brothers during my school 
days. . . . The common winter clothing of us boys was a warm 
grey coating, being a mixture of the black and white wool, and this 
was 'fulled' at Sherwood's Fulling Mill about half a mile from 
my father's house. One long piece of this fulled coating, and 
another of nice blue cloth, was yearly made for the use of my 
father and my brothers. When we had a surplus it was sold or 
bartered for something we wanted. Industry and frugality were 
the order of the day, and of all the days. Taxes must be paid, 
and money must be had for that purpose, and also for many other 
things. What little money was received from sales of the products 
of the farm, or household manufactures, was carefully husbanded." 

Eben Perry, the eldest of the boys, had left home at the age of 
fourteen, when Solomon was only two years old. Taking service 
on a merchantman owned by one of his relatives, he developed 
such aptitude and reliability that at sixteen he was first officer and 
before he was twenty-one he was master and half owner of the 
large schooner " Madisonia," equipped for transatlantic and 
South American commerce. By the time Solomon reached the 
age of twelve or thirteen, the question as to what should be his life 
pursuit was a subject for frequent family consultation, and finally 



His Early Life 25 

it was decided that he should " learn the sea " with Eben. As a 
preparation for this — to quote his own words — his " district school 
education was finished up by the study of navigation and a year 
at the academy." In October, 1810, being then in his fifteenth 
year, he joined Eben in New York, and they set sail for George- 
town, D. C, whence they were to take a cargo for Lisbon. The 
voyage to Chesapeake Bay proved a rough one, and Solomon 
suffered so intensely from seasickness that before the mouth of 
the Potomac was reached his ardor for a seafaring career was 
much abated. And when, a few days later, Elisha WiUiams, a 
prosperous merchant of Georgetown, with whom Eben Sturges 
had business, was prepossessed by Solomon's appearance, and 
offered him a position in his counting room until Eben should 
return from across the Atlantic, and longer if, on better acquaint- 
ance, both parties should be satisfied, he accepted with alacrity, 
after consultation with his brother. He was taken into Mr. Wil- 
liams' household and was very kindly treated during the two years 
he remained in that employment. 

When war against England was declared in 1812, Mr. Williams 
retired from business, and Solomon, upon his recommendation, 
took a position as clerk in the grocery store of John Hersey at 
Georgetown. About this time he received word that his brother's 
vessel, the "Madisonia," on her return voyage from Pernambuco, 
had been captured by a British frigate, and that Eben was a 
prisoner in Spanish Town, Jamaica. Being deeply attached to 
his brother, this news distressed Solomon greatly. After suffering 
much hardship and passing through an attack of yellow fever, 
Eben was released upon parol and returned to the United States. 
As soon as he had regained sufficient strength to undertake the 
journey, he went to Ohio to visit his sister Sarah, who, on March 31, 
1812, had been married to Ebenezer Buckingham, one of the Ohio 
pioneers, who was born in Fairfield County, Connecticut, and 
who had then, for several years, been located in Springfield 
(shortly afterward renamed as Putnam, and now a part of the 
city of Zanesville), near the head of navigation on the Muskingum 
river, where he was a prosperous merchant. The interior of the 



26 Solomon Sturges 

state of Ohio was then for the most part an unbroken wilderness, 
traversed only by rough trails. Here and there was the rude begin- 
ning of a village, or the detached log cabin of some hardy pioneer; 
but, safety from Indian hostilities having at last become fairly 
assured, settlers were rapidly pouring in. 

Foreseeing the opportunities afforded by this new country, 
Eben decided to abandon the sea, and to make Ohio his home. 
Returning east, he formed a partnership with his kinsman, Buck- 
ingham Sherwood, and they bought a stock of merchandise which 
they transported in wagons to Zanesville, and thence, with great 
difficulty, north as far as Mansfield, en route to General Harrison's 
camp on the frontier. At the solicitation of the handful of settlers 
then in Mansfield, which is beautifully situated in a fertile region 
on almost the exact summit of the watershed between the Ohio 
river and Lake Erie, they were persuaded to stop there and to 
open a store. In this way did Eben chance to locate in Mansfield, 
where he spent the remainder of his days. The business prospered 
from the outset. Enterprising and energetic, he soon laid the foun^ 
dation of his fortune, and became one of the most influential men 
in northern central Ohio. A few years after he settled in Mans- 
field he brought his youngest brother Edward Sturges there and 
made him his partner, Mr. Sherwood retiring. The firm of E. P. & 
E. Sturges built up a large and profitable business, trading over 
an extended area in the progressively developing adjacent territory. 
During all of the many years it continued it bore an enviable repu- 
tation, and was one of the most highly respected mercantile houses 
in that section of the country.^ 

1 Eben Perry Sturges died in Mansfield, January 1, 1862. He was married three 
times. By his first wife, Amanda Buckingham (born February 7, 1804; married 
August 15, 1824; died September 19, 1830), daughter of Stephen and Esther (Coo- 
ley) Buckingham, he had three sons; (1) Dimon Sturges, born October 21, 1825, 
died in Mansfield, March 18, 1900 — a merchant of that city; (2) Colonel Stephen 
Buckingham Sturges of Brooklyn, New York, who was born March 12, 1827, and 
died in Brooklyn, December 19, 1897; (3) Edward Sturges of Buffalo, and later of 
Geneva, New York, who was born February 1, 1829, and died in Canandaigua, 
New York, in November, 1899. By his second wife, Jerusha Merrick Hale (born 
September 19, 1797; married September 15, 1834; died April 25, 1847), daughter 
of Benjamin and Martha (Welles) Hale, Mr. Sturges had a son (4) Henry Hale 



Solomon Sturges 

Mt. about 39. From tlie Portrait painted about 1835, in the possession 

of Mrs. Buckingliam Sturges. The window in the backgi'ound 

affords a glimpse of the old mill and wooden bridge across the 

Muskingum at Zanesville, Ohio, and the "dug road" under 

the bluff on the Putnam side of the river 



His Early Life 27 

When Washington was threatened with an attack by the British, 
Solomon Sturges joined a volunteer artillery company that was 
organized to aid in defending the cities of the District of Columbia, 
and for a short time was stationed at Fort Washington on the Poto- 
mac. Among his fellow privates in this service were George 
Peabody, afterward eminent as a banker and philanthropist, and 
Francis Key, the author of "The Star Spangled Banner." On 
the return of the company to Georgetown, Solomon found a letter 
from his brother-in-law, Ebenezer Buckingham, inviting him to 
come out to Ohio and enter his store as a clerk. This he decided 
to do and the journey was taken in the spring of 1814. His ac- 
count of it should be of interest to his descendants. 

" In May or June, 1814, I left Georgetown and took a stage, or 
what was then called a stage, for Pittsburgh, going by Chambers- 
burgh and Bedford. The road was exceedingly rough as it was 
years before the turnpike was constructed, and the journey was 
slow; but I was buoyant with hope and expectation. On arriving 
at Pittsburgh I found the Ohio river rather low and no boat ready 
to leave. I was anxious to go ahead, and finding at the tavern I 
had stopped at, two young men, one of whom wanted to go to 
Louisville, and the other to Cincinnati, we clubbed together and 
bought a skiff. We then busily set to work and fixed an awning 
over the skiff, so as to partially shelter us from the sun and from 
rain, and, procuring some provisions, we put out on the Ohio, 
upon our river voyage. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon 
when we started, and we took alternate turns at rowing. Before 
morning it commenced raining, our hands became blistered, and 
on arriving at Wheeling we were a sorry looking set of young 

Sturges, born December 1, 1835, now living in Mansfield; and a daughter (5) 
Amanda Sturges, born January 18, 1840, who was married June 14, 1865, to Colonel 
Addison Augustus Hosmer of Washington, D. C. (born Oakdale, Massachusetts, 
February 28, 1833), son of Eben and Mary (Cheney) Hosmer. By his third wife, 
Ruth Maria Tracy whom he married in 1850, Mr. Sturges had no issue. 

Edward Sturges, the junior partner, died in Mansfield, September 16, 1878, in 
his seventy-third year. He married in Putnam, Ohio, July 5, 1837, Mary Sturges 
Mathews, daughter of Dr. Increase and Betsey (Levens) Mathews of Putnam, and 
was the father of Charles Mathews Sturges, who was born in Mansfield, May 8, 
1838, and of five other sons and three daughters. 



28 Solomon Sturges 

navigators. There we learned that a * Barge ' had just before left 
for Cincinnati, and notwithstanding our blistered hands we fol- 
lowed as hard as we could row, and to our great joy we overhauled 
her not many miles below, and the kind Frenchman who com- 
manded her permitted us to tie our skiff to his boat, and we took 
shelter under the roof of his comparatively large vessel. The 
'Barge' was the boat in which the commerce of that period was 
carried on from Pittsburgh to New Orleans, and many, perhaps 
most of them, were owned and commanded by Frenchmen. Two 
trips a year from New Orleans to Pittsburgh and back were about 
their performance. They took up sugar, molasses, cotton, and 
groceries of various kinds, and took down whiskey, flour, bacon, 
pork, and other products of the western states and territories. 
We dried our clothes, and then went to sleep upon the Captain's 
buffalo robes which were hospitably spread for our comfort. 

"We had quite a good time on this Barge until we reached 
Marietta where I landed. I gave to my two companions my in- 
terest in the skiff and unconsumed stock of provisions and soon 
found my way to the store of Mr. D. Woodbridge who Mr. 
Buckingham had written me would assist me in getting some con- 
veyance to Springfield, as Putnam was then called. With his 
assistance a horse was hired, saddle bags borrowed, and a part of 
my scanty wardrobe was transferred to them from a not very large 
trunk which then contained my worldly possessions. I stayed 
until the next morning at quite a comfortable hotel upon the bank 
of the river, and after an early breakfast started for Springfield. 
The ride was rather a lonesome one, having no company. I had 
obtained the names of the places or taverns I should want to stop 
at, and on the following day, toward evening, arrived at Zanes- 
ville ^ and was ferried over the Muskingum to Springfield (now 
Putnam) which proved to be my home for so many years. My 
brother-in-law, Mr. Buckingham, and my sister Sarah, were ex- 
pecting me, and received me with open arms. I had not seen my 

1 The accomplishment, in so short a time, of this journey of about eighty miles 
over a rough trail leading through a strange country, must be accounted a very 
creditable performance. 



His Early Life 29 

sister since tlie fall of 1810, and Mr. Buckingham I had never seen 
before. I was made to feel at home at once, and after a day or 
two of rest, was installed in my situation as clerk, and soon found 
my place was no sinecure." 

In this environment Solomon was not long in giving evidence of 
unusual business ability. He had just entered upon his nineteenth 
year. By nature industrious, energetic and intellectually alert, 
and although yet so young, having these qualities already favor- 
ably developed by his years of residence in Georgetown under 
excellent influences, he found in his brother-in-law, who was a 
man of force and marked ability, just the one to give further im- 
petus and direction to his talents. The very next winter he was 
sent to Philadelphia to buy goods — a trust which well indicates 
the degree in which he had almost at once approved himself. It 
was a sad winter in Mr. Buckingham's household. His infant son 
John, born at the end of October, died on Christmas day; in Feb- 
ruary his son Ebenezer, aged fourteen months, passed away; and 
with the opening of spring came the hardest blow of all, in the 
death, on April 9, 1815, of liis beloved wife Sarah, Solomon Sturges' 
sister. 

Active work is the most potent healer of the bereaved, and in 
the busy young community where they lived, the stricken husband 
and brother were given little opportunity to nurse their grief. In 
the spring of 1816 Mr. Buckingham decided to take his clerk, 
Solomon Sturges, and his own younger brother, Alvah Buckingham, 
into partnership with him, giving each of them a quarter interest, 
and on April 6 of that year the firm of E. Buckingham, Jr., & Co. 
was formed. Ebenezer Buckingham, the senior partner, was then 
aged thirty-eight; his brother Alvah was thirteen years his junior; 
and Solomon Sturges still lacked fifteen days of being twenty 
years old. 

The location of Putnam in the midst of a fertile and rapidly 
developing section of the country, situated on the bank of a navi- 
gable river leading into the Ohio, then the great highway between 
Pittsburgh and the west and south, was, in the days before the 
advent of railway transportation, exceptionably favorable. From 



30 Solomon Sturges 

the beginning the profits of the new firm were large. Its activities 
extended over a considerable extent of territory, and it soon became 
widely known and highly esteemed. 

In the spring of 1817, Solomon went to New Orleans with four 
flat boats laden with produce, and returned to Ohio by land. " It 
was then," he wrote in his reminiscences of his early life, " an un- 
broken wilderness from Lake Pontchartrain to the Tennessee river, 
and the trail, or bridle path, was not always easily kept. We were 
a little over thirty days performing the journey home, and glad 
enough was I when I arrived there." While in New Orleans he 
was among the enthusiastic throng that hailed the arrival at that 
city of the "Washington," the first steamboat on the Ohio and 
Mississippi rivers, except a crude affair that made the down trip 
in 1811 but did not attempt a return voyage. In the autumn of 
the same year, having gone to Detroit to take funds to Governor 
Cass to pay off troops, he witnessed the arrival there of " Walk in 
the Water," the first steamboat to ply the waters of the great lakes. 
These journeys illustrate the active life led by the enterprising 
merchant in the "western country" at that period. In addition 
there were annual visits to the cities on the Atlantic seaboard, to 
buy goods. By Mr. Sturges these visits were continued through a 
long series of years and thus he was enabled to keep in close touch 
with his relatives in "the East," and to build up a considerable 
circle of friends and acquaintances there. 

Shortly after the formation of the new firm, Ebenezer Bucking- 
ham left the business in charge of his partners and journeyed to 
Glastonbury, Connecticut, where, on August 5, 1816, he married 
Eunice Hale, daughter of Benjamin and Martha (Welles) Hale, 
whose acquaintance he had made while she was in Zanesville 
visiting her cousin, the wife of Dr. Reed. Travel in the West was 
at that time a matter of difficulty and often of hardships. The 
return trip of the couple was made across the Allegheny mountains 
on horseback, there being then no roads for wagons. They were 
accompanied by the bride's younger sister, Anna Hale, who, in 
1819, became the wife of Alvah Buckingham. 

In 1821, Lucy Hale, the youngest daughter of Benjamin and 




Lucy Hale Sturges 

yEt. about 35. From the Portrait painted about 1835, in tlie 
possession of Mrs. Buckingham Sturges 



His Early Life 31 

Martha (Welles) Hale, made the journey from Connecticut to 
visit her two married sisters and other relatives hving in Putnam. 
Solomon Sturges appears early to have been attracted by her ad- 
mirable traits, but perhaps because his business took him so much 
away from home at that period (he was absent for a long while in 
1821, making a voyage to New Orleans, and thence by sea to Phila- 
delphia, being stricken on shipboard by a fever by which he was 
prostrated for some weeks after arriving at his destination), more 
than a year seems to have elapsed before they became formally 
engaged. His own account of his engagement is as follows : 

" Lucy expected to return to her home in Connecticut in 1823, 
but before the time came I had made an agreement with her that 
my sister, who was visiting in Ohio, should return [to Connecticut] 
with her, and she was to return to Ohio with me as my bride. This 
was the most important bargain I ever made. We were married 
in August of that year, at her father's home on the banks of the 
Connecticut, and during the thirty-six years we lived together it 
was almost always sunshine in our household. Her cheerful, 
happy temperament, and kind, sympathetic heart always made my 
home pleasant; the magnetic influence she always imparted to it, 
always drew me so strongly that when called away by business, 
my thoughts would flit back, ' like the needle to the pole.' " 




Solomon Sttjkges 
From the Marble Bust by Hiram Powers 



Ill 



The nine yeftrs following Mr. Stui^ea' marriage werp years of 

vi ^ing prosperity. Then, in August, 18!^^ 

Hi... .... . _,. .} disturbed by the sudden death of his hi 

and partner, Ebenezer Buckingham, who lost his life by the falling 
of one of the spans of the very important bridge over the Muskin ■ 
gum, con^ ' T>. .- _. ^.jljj Zanesville, '' "*- ngthening of 
wliicb ag.i in that river be intending at 

the time the accident occurred. J ^i shock 

not only to hi 

commv''' '■- - ., • 

"He His 

judgment ve, and i attribute much « 







actions ^ 




u Mr. 


Buck' 


Milton B 




he deceased, was induced 


\n ~ 




Qrm. Heze- 


k:«.-- 




. . , , . ve from Fair- 


field to Ohio ; 




r. of their father in 1829, also became 


one of the par 




rtm. had an equal share. In 1843 


Milton Bv ' 




' " ' - in the firm was taken by 


Alvah's so. 




a. 



By this time various business enterprises throughout the western 



;<H 



I,', -,, 



Ill 



HIS LATER LIFE 



The nine years following Mr. Sturges' marriage were years of 
steadily increasing prosperity. Then, in August, 1832, their even 
flow was rudely disturbed by the sudden death of his brother-in-law 
and partner, Ebenezer Buckingham, who lost his hfe by the falling 
of one of the spans of the very important bridge over the Muskin- 
gum, connecting Putnam with Zanesville, the strengthening of 
which against a great flood in that river he was superintending at 
the time the accident occurred. His death was a severe shock 
not only to his immediate family and relatives, but to the whole 
community, where the event was regarded as a pubhc calamity. 
"He was," wrote Solomon Sturges, "an extraordinary man; his 
judgment was almost intuitive, and I attribute much of my worldly 
success to his helping hand, but more to the impress upon my mind 
and character made by eighteen years of constant intercourse with 
him in the thousands of transactions we were interested in together." 

After the death of Mr. Buckingham the old firm was dissolved, 
but the business was continued by the surviving partners under 
the style of " A Buckingham & Company." The following year 
Milton Buckingham, another brother of the deceased, was induced 
to leave his farm at Carthage, Ohio, and to join the firm. Heze- 
kiah Sturges, whom Solomon had persuaded to remove from Fair- 
field to Ohio after the death of their father in 1829, also became 
one of the partners, each of whom had an equal share. In 1843 
Milton Buckingham retired and his place in the firm was taken by 
Alvah's son, Ben amin Hale Buckingham. 

By this time various business enterprises throughout the western 

33 



34 Solomon Sturges 

country, which extended presently to large investments in lands in 
Indiana and Illinois, and in the case of Mr. Sturges at least, in 
Missouri and Wisconsin, were becoming more and more exacting 
in their demands upon the attention of the senior partners. Their 
children, too, were growing up, and in 1845 the firm of " A. Buck- 
ingham & Company" was dissolved, and the mercantile business 
in Putnam was turned over to " Buckingham & Sturges," a firm 
composed of Benjamin Hale Buckingham and William Sturges, 
the eldest sons of Alvah Buckingham and Solomon Sturges. 

Under the strain of the ever-widening scope of his activities, 
Mr. Sturges' health began gradually to decline. Prudence would 
have suggested the curtailment of his enterprises, but his ardent 
spirit never well brooked the relinquishment of any of his designs. 
In his case, indeed, circumstances were sometimes almost com- 
pelling to a widening field of operations. The story of one instance 
of the kind, in which, assuming large responsibilities, he em- 
barked on wholly new waters, may best be told in his own 
words. 

" My brothers [Eben and Edward, at Mansfield, Ohio] and my- 
self in the course of our operations had become considerable 
holders of the bonds of the State of Indiana, and about the years 
1846-48 we had accepted terms of compromise offered by the 
State, and accepted new bonds and 3 per cent stock for one-half of 
the old principal, and the other half in the preferred stock of the 
Wabash and Erie Canal, which was to connect the city of Toledo, 
upon Lake Erie, with the city of Evansville on the Ohio river. In 
1850 it became apparent that the Trustees who had the canal in 
charge would not be able to finish it to conform to the terms of 
the compromise, for want of funds. Under the circumstances, 
and fearing a large loss if the canal should not be finished in time, 
I entered into a contract with said Trustees (associating Samuel 
Farrer and S. A. Hosmer with me in the enterprise), to finish the 
balance of the work on or before 1 Nov., 1853. This was for me 
a big job. It was expected to amount [in expenditures] to nearly 
$700,000 and the total sum was finally near that amount. I was 
to furnish the funds, or procure them, Mr. Farrer was to act as 



His Later Life 35 

Engineer, he having been at the head of the Canal Engineer Corps 
of Ohio for many years, and Mr. Hosmer was to be upon the line 
of the work, superintending and pressing it forward. We went 
along well enough while the money market was easy, but after 
spending all I could raise from my own resources, all I could bor- 
row from my brothers, or other friends, I was often straightened 
to get funds for our heavy monthly payments, which had all to be 
made in cash, while by our contract with the Trustees we were to 
receive their bonds payable at various periods from 1854 to 1860. 
I have never found the value of a good credit so important to me 
as during the progress of that work. Indeed, at one time, when 
our payments were about $30,000 per month, I was on the point 
of going to England to raise money, had letters of introduction 
from friends in New York to their correspondents in London all 
prepared, when unexpectedly my friend Caleb O. Halsted ^ pro- 
cured me from his friend, Mr. Kennedy, a retired merchant, a 
loan of $50,000 with assurance of other sums if they should be 
wanted, and this, with other sums from other quarters, carried 
our canal contract safely through, with a fair amount of profit and 
considerable credit. The net profit of the operation after every 
expense, interest, etc., was paid, was nearly $80,000. This was 
equally shared by the three partners." 

In 1846, four years before this canal contract was undertaken, 
Alvah Buckingham formed a partnership with his friend Rufus 
Putnam Burlingame, Mr. Buckingham furnishing the capital, 
and Mr. Burlingame was sent to Chicago to open a lumber yard 
in that already promising field. The business of forwarding and 
grain and produce commission was also taken up, and in 1851 they 
built the Fulton Elevator, the first grain elevator erected in Chicago. 
Its capacity was about 75,000 bushels, and at that time it was 
regarded as a wonder. The success of this venture attracting the 
attention of Mr. Sturges, in June, 1855 he purchased a third in- 
terest in the business which had for two years been conducted by 
the firm of Buckingham and Burhngame, and agreed to furnish 
capital for a larger enterprise in the same line which he projected. 
1 President of the Manhattan Company of New York. 



36 Solomon Sturges 

He had in the summer of the previous year made some stay in 
Illinois, then visited together by his brothers Eben, Edward and 
himself, that the three in person might, on the ground, direct the 
beginnings of a large farm to be located on three sections of land 
owned by them and situated near to what is now Gilman, Illinois. 
The Chicago branch of the IlUnois Central Railroad had then, in 
its construction from Chicago, reached about that point only, but 
was being daily pushed further southward. The whole northward 
region traversed by that new line was, unless it here and there 
touched some old and thinly populated village "in the timber," 
a solitude of unbroken prairie whose citizenship was that alone 
of deer, wolves, rattlesnakes, and like denizens. An eyewitness, 
who accompanied the three brothers on that trip, states that the 
now flourishing and populous city of Kankakee, was then visible 
from the car windows only as a few pine structures, which here and 
there showed themselves in unpainted yellowness, in the scrub 
forest that bordered the Kankakee river. It seems plain that on 
that trip the keen foresight and rapid intuitions of Solomon Sturges 
justly grasped the future of that region and well beheld its virgin 
areas as shortly, and greatly, to pour their transmuted richness, 
in a wealth of grain, into the lap of Chicago, thence to be distributed 
to a waiting and hungry world. While in Chicago on that trip — 
and it is supposed, on his return from his stay in the interior, he 
had proposed to the Illinois Central Railroad to build and operate 
at Chicago, an elevator for the handling of the grain to reach that 
city on its new line. Such negotiations as followed were doubtless 
not handicapped by the fact that his cousin, Jonathan Sturges of 
New York city (between whom and his western cousins very kindly 
relations had existed from boyhood and who well knew their worth), 
was importantly connected with the financial management and 
policies of the railroad. The acceptance of that proposition and 
the execution of a contract to do all the grain warehousing at Chi- 
cago for the railroad for a term of ten years, was followed by the 
erection by the firm of Sturges, Buckingham & Co., of what 
were known as Central Elevators "A" and "B," located upon 
the docks of the railroad at its terminus near the mouth of the 



The Residence of Solomon Sturges 

At the northeast corner of Pine and Huron streets, Chicago. This building 
was burned in the great Chicago fire of 1871 



a-foatr*rfti5toliwx]' -^aH an' J 



His Later Life 37 

Chicago river. Elevator " A " was finished in the autumn of 1855, 
and " B " some time during the following summer. 

The operation of these warehouses was most profitable, but 
Mr. Sturges found that the prudent conduct of the business re- 
quired his constant presence in Chicago. He accordingly made 
his plans to remove thither with his family. This proposed change 
was not wholly congenial to his wife, who, as might be supposed, 
had a deep attachment to the home in Putnam where she had Uved 
for thirty-three happy years, and was loth to leave the large circle 
of relatives and friends that surrounded her there. She had men- 
tioned that should she remove to Chicago she would wish to have 
there as commodious and comfortable a homestead as had been 
hers at Putnam, and her husband determined that in that particu- 
lar she should indulge no regrets. He bought from Walter L. 
Newberry the south half of the block bounded by Pine, Huron, St. 
Clair and Superior streets, and at its southwest comer (the north- 
east comer of Pine and Huron streets), built what was then con- 
sidered perhaps the finest dwelUng in the city.^ It was of ample 
size and pleasing exterior, and lacked no interior comfort that it 
was then possible to provide. Mrs. Sturges did not, however, live 
to occupy it. While it was being prepared for her reception she 
became ill and died at the residence of Dr. W. W. Bancroft in 
Granville, Ohio, July 25, 1859. Mr. Sturges, who was in New 
York at the time, was apprised by telegraph that her illness had 
taken a serious turn and he hastened to her bedside, but arrived 
only in time to mingle his tears with those of their children. The 
loss of this helpmeet, to whom he was deeply attached, was a blow 
from which Solomon never recovered, and he mourned for her to 
the end of his life. After her death, his health, already largely 
undermined, steadily failed, and it soon became evident that he 
would probably not long survive her. 

Although the clouds of impending civil war were beginning to 
darken the horizon, and the country had not fully recovered from 
the effects of the panic of 1857, Mr. Sturges' affairs were in ex- 

1 It was one of two semi-detached houses, the other being intended as a resi- 
dence for one of his sons. 



38 Solomon Sturges 

cellent condition and his means were rapidly increasing. His 
grain business had expanded to large proportions, and as a se- 
quence to it he had become the owner of quite a number of grain- 
carrying vessels on the Great Lakes, and the proprietor of a fleet 
of tugboats in the Chicago harbor, which were under the manage- 
ment of Captain John Prindiville. During his residence in Putnam^ 
Mr. Sturges had been interested in the banks in Zanesville, as a 
stockholder, and for some years he had conducted a private bank 
there. When the outbreak of the rebellion seemed imminent and 
there was widespread distrust of the stability of the Illinois banks, 
whose assets consisted in many instances largely of southern paper 
and "stumptail" currency which had depreciated heavily in ex- 
changeable quality and was of uncertain value, he perceived that 
the time was fit for the establishment in Chicago, by one of his 
high credit and reputation for prudence and financial sagacity, of 
a banking house conducted upon conservative lines and starting 
out free from the burdens that hampered existing institutions. 
Associating with him his sons, Buckingham and Albert as partners, 
and William as manager, the firm of Solomon Sturges & Sons was 
formed, in the latter part of the year 1860. The building at num- 
bers 15 and 17 Wells street, formerly occupied by the bank of 
George Smith, and distant but half a block from the Chicago 
Board of Trade, then located on South Water street, was rented 
and the new bank opened its doors. Success was immediate; 
deposits came pouring in, and in a short time the largest banking 
business in the city was built up. 

Mr. Sturges' active connection with this firm lasted only about 
two years. The name was then changed to Solomon Sturges' Sons. 
After the establishment in Chicago of the numerous banks organ- 
ized under the National Bank Act the business gradually fell oflF, 
and in 1866 it was closed up and the partners retired. 

In politics Mr. Sturges was for many years a Whig, but as the 
clash between the North and South became acute, and an armed 
conflict over the slavery question imminent, he became an ardent 
Republican, and was one of the most eager and enthusiastic ad- 
vocates of the nomination of Lincoln for the Presidency of the 



His Later Life 39 

United States. The excitement due to the breaking out of the 
civil war put a further strain upon his then much shattered health. 
With flaming patriotism he subscribed largely to the Government 
loans, and, desiring to aid his country by every means in his power, 
he raised, armed, equipped, and for nearly two months subsisted 
at his own cost, a company of volunteers known as " The Sturges 
Rifles." The organization of the company was begun in April, 

1861, when the news came of the attack on Fort Sumter. It was 
armed by Mr. Sturges with Sharpe's rifles, and was mustered into 
service on May 6, but was not attached to any regiment. About 
the middle of June it was ordered to West Virginia to serve as a 
bodyguard to General George B. McClellan, reporting to him at 
Parkersburg. It accompanied him in the West Virginia campaign 
of that year, participating in the battle of Rich Mountain, and 
then marched with him to Washington where he went to assume 
the command of the armies. At Washington, which was reached 
on July 26, 1861, the company did guard duty until March 10, 

1862, when it accompanied the General upon the march to York- 
town, and, after the siege of that place, thence into the seven days' 
battle of the Chickahominy. During this campaign many of the 
members of the company were detached as foragers, scouts, etc., 
and a few of them were in the battle of Antietam. The company 
left the army at Falmouth, and on November 25, 1862, it was 
mustered out of service at Washington. Its officers were James 
Steel, captain, Nathaniel E. Sheldon, first lieutenant, and Marcus 
P. Foster, second lieutenant. Under them were ninety-nine men, 
all told, of whom two were musicians. 

In the winter of 1861-62, Mr. Sturges made a trip to " the front," 
going down the Mississippi as far as Island Number Ten, and 
visiting the troops in their various encampments. On his visit to 
the Army of the Tennessee, to which his son Shelton was attached, 
he witnessed the battle of Fort Donnelson. Not long after his re- 
turn to Chicago, his health finally gave way to such an extent as 
to compel his retirement from business. Then followed a stay of 
some months in New England, during which he made a tour 
through the White Mountains. The next year he resumed his 



40 Solomon Sturges 

interrupted residence in Putnam, for so many years his happy 
home, where his daughter Mrs. Potwin resided, and where yet Uved 
his brother Hezekiah, his sister AmeUa, and a surviving group of 
old friends. Solaced by the companionship and solicitude of these, 
in the peace of the beautiful village, and tenderly cared for by his 
daughter, he at last died at her home, on October 14, 1864. 

The following estimate of Mr. Sturges' character written by 
one who knew him well, appeared in the columns of the " Zanes- 
ville Courier" of October 21, 1864. 

" Mr. Sturges was a man or great simplicity and transparency, 
yet a decidedly positive character. He put on no airs and with 
him there was no disguise; what he thought he uttered, what he 
felt he manifested unequivocally and strongly, yet never with the 
intention of wounding another's feelings. If with his nervous 
temperament and quick excitability he sometimes appeared harsh 
and overbearing, it was only because he wished to be frank and 
decided. He was a kind and generous neighbor, an upright and 
worthy citizen, honest and honorable in all his transactions with 
men. Close and sharp at a bargain, yet when 'swearing to his 
own hurt, he changed not,' but fulfilled the letter and spirit of his 
contracts. Those who had befriended him were never forgotten, 
but were remembered with the liveliest gratitude, and those who 
shared his confidence ever found in him a firm, steadfast and re- 
liable friend. He could appreciate a noble character, and such had 
a warm place in his heart. He was a keen observer of men and 
things, read character with wonderful facility and though some- 
times mistaken, often at a glance, judged men with surprising 
accuracy. 

"To the institutions of religion, he gave a liberal support, and 
was a punctual attendant at the house of God on the Sabbath. 
He was Hkewise an attentive and appreciative hearer of the word, 
though as preached, it might not carry conviction to his own mind. 
He contributed cheerfully to the various objects of Christian 
benevolence, and to the colonization society particularly, in whose 
mission at one time he had great confidence, he gave largely. 
The Ladies' Seminary in Putnam, of which he was one of the three 



Solomon and Lucy Hale Sturges 

From a Daguerreotype taken 
about 1855 



His Later Life 41 

original founders, and for many years a trustee, attests the interest 
he felt in female education, and the desire he had that the daugh- 
ters of the land might be thoroughly furnished for their appropriate 
and responsible duties. 

" Mr. Sturges was a true, ardent and self-sacrificing patriot. He 
loved the country for which his ancestors fought and bled, and 
hastened to its rescue when imperiled. He hated corruption and 
improvidence anywhere, especially in the public servants. Always 
preferring right above any mere party ties, he was ready to pursue 
the course, which, to him, seemed best adapted to secure the highest 
welfare of the nation. For demagogues and political tricksters, 
who seek to fatten upon the public treasury, without rendering an 
equivalent service, he had a supreme contempt. When the present 
rebellion broke out he entered, with more than his wonted energy 
and activity, into the work of its overthrow and the destruction of 
its life and power. He organized a company of 'Rifles' bearing 
his own name, involving a personal expenditure of $20,000, besides 
other expenditures exceeding, perhaps, those of any other indi- 
vidual in the country. 

"When the Government in the first of that dark and gloomy 
period, appealed to its citizens for pecuniary aid and it required 
great fortitude to invest to any great extent in its securities, and 
when several of the loyal States proposed to indorse for the Govern- 
ment, to the extent of their receipts from the sales of public land, 
Mr. Sturges promptly subscribed for $100,000 of the first loan 
offered to the public. This liberal subscription was heralded over 
the country as evincing his faith in the Government and had a 
marked effect in inducing early and rapid subscription to this 
patriotic loan. He also gave orders that the receipts from his 
grain warehouses, then yielding a large revenue, should also be 
appropriated in like manner. It was one of the strong desires of 
his heart that he might live to witness the downfall of the rebellion 
and the complete triumph of the Government, and its free institu- 
tions enjoyed by all the inhabitants of the land. 

" The country has had few men of greater financial ability than 
Mr. Sturges. Eminently was he the architect of his own fortune. 



42 Solomon Sturges 

His unwonted success was not the result of some rash speculation 
by which wealth is sometimes acquired and lost in a day. It was 
the legitimate fruit of fine business talents, patient and laborious 
toil, singular and accurate forethought and consummate skill in the 
management of his extensive and multiform affairs. His mind 
worked with wonderful rapidity not only, but had unflinching 
tenacity and untiring energy to the goal of his ambition — almost 
always too with sound judgment and commendable prudence. If 
in any case there was a spice of romance in his plans, the instances 
were few, considering his quick and excitable temperament, and 
may be pardoned for the lofty ideal which floated in his imagina- 
tion. 

" Mr. Sturges was no common man. His was no negative char- 
acter, taking its elements and shape from surrounding influences. 
He was one of nature's noblemen, born to rule, to give form and 
direction, and furnish thought and stimulus to other minds, and 
help society to move. He possessed a tall and commanding form, 
a well developed head, 'bright, keen and detective' eyes, a coun- 
tenance, at times serene and thoughtful, and again glowing under 
the workings of his quick and genial spirit, as full of life and buoy- 
ancy, and as fond of humor and pleasant repartee as the most 
youthful and lively around him. Yet in these seasons of relaxation 
and social enjoyment, his large experience and deep reflection 
prompted the most sage and worthy counsels. 

" It was a great comfort to Mr. Sturges, in his last sickness, that 
he could be in the bosom of his family, and as a child, be nursed 
by the tender assiduities of his daughters. And it was a noble 
sight to see him borne to his burial by his manly sons, and to those 
who have known and respected him so long, it is a source of deep 
regret that we shall ' see his face no more.' " 



RECOLLECTIONS OF LUCY HALE STURGES 

BY KATE STURGES BENTON 



RECOLLECTIONS OF LUCY HALE STURGES 

BY KATE STURGES BENTON 

To write all that I can remember about my mother seems a very 
little thing for me to do, and yet I hesitate. To give the beautiful 
memories in my heart I should need an inspired pen and an artist's 
brush, and I have neither. 

I can give only a few facts about my mother's early life. Her 
birthplace was Glastonbury, Connecticut, a town where the shad- 
ows from old elm trees play adown the one solitary street in which 
stands the old-fashioned two-story frame house of my grandfather 
Benjamin Hale. She was next to the youngest of a family of nota- 
ble sisters; "none knew them but to praise." She was christened 
"Lucy." I know nothing of her childhood. I have often heard 
my father say that in her youth she was very fair to look upon and 
that he was attracted by her lovely disposition which I came myself 
so well to know in her later years. 

From an old newspaper I quote the following: " In August, 1823, 
Mr. Solomon Sturges was united in marriage to Miss Lucy Hale 
of Glastonbury, Conn., a lady eminently fitted by her happy tem- 
perament, her loving heart and her cheerful piety, to be his com- 
panion." I have often heard of their long wedding journey on 
horseback, over the mountains to the quiet little town of Putnam, 
in Muskingum County, Ohio. There my mother was welcomed 
by her two married sisters, who had eagerly awaited her coming. 
The three sisters worked in harmony side by side for many years, 
and did much, as pioneer women, to build up in strength and 
beauty, that Httle valley town among the Muskingum hills. 

The home of my childhood was a very happy and a very beautiful 

45 



46 Solomon Sturges 

one. I was born in a new house — we had outgrown the old one, 
and father's worldly goods had increased with his family. The 
new house was the admiration of all the countryside, and very 
proud was I when old enough to appreciate its grandeur. The 
parlors were large and high and were seemingly multiplied into 
many rooms by large mirrors at each end. We had no gas, but 
lamps with many prisms made the rooms appear like fairy caves. 
The carpets of green velvet were so soft to my feet that in child- 
hood I fancied they must be made of some kind of fairy moss; 
and the cornices that held the soft lace curtains, I then believed 
to be of purest gold. My mother was my real fairy queen ; the house 
was her castle, and I was a princess. I did not give my older 
brothers much consideration. They came and went at their own 
good pleasure; but Frank was my good comrade, and I idolized 
my two sisters. 

Can I attempt to describe my mother ? She was small of stature, 
gentle of hand and swift of foot. She had the softest brown hair, 
and the loveliest eyes I ever saw, and the sweetest voice. I never 
knew her to be idle. Indeed, with nine children, how could she 
be ? I never knew her to be " cross ; " nine restless spirits in the 
home taught her patience. We were a little village of relatives at 
Putnam, and besides the care of her own large family, she was given 
to hospitality; and when the aunts and uncles came, and cousins 
by the dozen, we numbered a goodly multitude. I can still see 
the long table with the delicate china — she always cared for that 
herself — the good things to eat, and her bright face behind the 
silver coffee urn, as well as I can remember that the atmosphere 
of the home was always " Peace." My mother made it so; and the 
motto of the house was "Plenty." She provided generously for 
the material wants of her big family; we always had enough and 
to spare. I remember that sweet-smelling cellar with bin after 
bin of the choicest apples, and the swinging shelf laden with pies 
that were always there and were never allowed to grow stale, for 
didn't we children hold high carnival ! 

I cannot tell of many great things my mother did — only the 
thousand and one little things that most people pass over lightly or 



Lucy Hale SturGes 

/Et about 5(5. From the Portrait by Pine, in the possession 
of Mrs. Benton 



Recollections of Lucy Hale Sturges 47 

leave undone. She had a good common school education of the 
sort furnished in the old-fashioned days, but she had little time to 
cultivate her mind. Though without what we call accomplish- 
ments, she was no ordinary woman. She lived before the era of 
trained nurses, and many demands were made for her loving 
services in sickness. She helped care for an invaUd sister ^ until 
she died, and then, with constant devotion, watched over her niece, 
the delicate Uttle Ada, daughter of that sister, until the child's 
father married again. Her poorer neighbors were made to feel 
that when in need they always had a claim upon her time and her 
purse. In the early springtime, when the winter snow melted upon 
our hilltops, and the Muskingum river overflowed so that many 
had to leave their homes to seek shelter elsewhere, I remember how 
excited I felt and how glad, under the inspiration of her expres- 
sions of sympathy, to give from my wardrobe to aid the sufferers. 
Speaking of clothes, I must relate an incident of my early child- 
hood that may interest the other members of the family. I was 
about six years old and the proud possessor of a cotton velvet 
hood. Cousin Eb. Convers mischievously threw it into a tub of 
water. The color ran and I was inconsolable. Cousin Ada,^ 
about my own age, tried in vain to comfort me. I wept bitter tears, 
but great was my joy when Saturday evening came and I was called 
in haste from my bath to behold " a love of a bonnet," a delicate 
corded blue silk affair, with pink rosebuds around the face, a 
present from Aunt Kate Convers. Can you imagine my ecstasy ? 
I could not sleep that night while visions of my appearance at 
church next day danced through my head. Sunday morning 
dawned bright and clear, but alas! it was not fair for me. I was 
not allowed to wear that " love of a bonnet " until one could be 
made exactly like it for Ada to wear at the same time. I confess 
my pleasure was half spoiled when I had to share that glory with 
another, even with a dear little cousin; but the incident serves to 
show how thoughtfully kind and impartial my mother was. 

1 Jerusha — Mrs. Eben Perry Sturges. 

2 Daughter of Eben Perry and Jerusha (Hale) Sturges. She is now Mrs. A. A. 
Hosmer. 



48 Solomon Sturges 

I remember that when I was a Httle girl she hid in the dark 
depths of our big cellar several negro families, fugitive slaves from 
Kentucky. She secreted and clothed, and fed them by day, and 
helped them forward by night on their journey to the Canadian 
border. How my heart thrilled with excitement, and how proud 
I was of my mother's courage. Feeling the inadequacy, by later 
standards, of her own education, she was most anxious that her 
children should have every advantage. She tried private tutors 
at Duncan's Falls, and the village schoolmaster, Mr. Chandler, 
came in the evenings to teach us to write. A dozen children gath- 
ered around the big "keeping room" table, with old-fashioned 
copy books and quill pens, and a dish of rosy apples in the centre to 
make drudgery a joy. Mother was particularly desirous that her 
sons should have collegiate educations, and I can recall her dis- 
appointment when they chose to walk another way. By father's 
liberality, William and Shelton were able to marry early, while I 
was still a child, and I can remember mother's impartiality in 
dealing with her daughters and daughters-in-law, dividing among 
them equally the gold she received from her Bridge Company 
dividends. With her sisters, Mrs. Ebenezer Buckingham and 
Mrs. Alvah Buckingham, she helped to endow Putnam Female 
Seminary, the pride of our town, and the dearly beloved "Alma 
Mater" whose shades I left in July, 1858, quite certain I had 
learned there everything worth knowing. 

How well I remember the old church on the hillside. 

In memory I enter the old oaken door 

And the form of my mother beside me will glide 

To her seat in the pew so familiar of yore ; 

And the minister, stately, will walk on before. 

Ascend to the pulpit, and give out the text. 

I tremble, in dread of the words that come next — 

For the words of those sermons, we children could tell. 

Were e'er about sin, and damnation and hell ! 

The orthodox preacher, the puritan preacher. 

The iron-bound preacher, remembered so well. 



The Presbyterian Church at Putn.\jvi, Ohio 

From an Engraving made from a photograph token before changes were 
made in the bnilding which materially alter its appearance 



Recollections of Lucy Hale Sturges 49 

Mother's voice in the hymns, how well I remember, 

And the light in her eyes — how bright they would shine — 

And when I was restless, how loving and tender 

The touch of her soft gentle hand upon mine. 

O, my angelic mother, 

There can be no other 

All the world over compared to mine. 

Mother was one of the sixteen original members of the church, 
and she lived her rehgion. She built the Sunday School hall ad- 
joining the church, so that the little children should have a pleas- 
anter place to meet in than the cold, dark basement of the church. 
A few days before her death I heard her say this little prayer: 
"O God, sanctify this affliction to my own and my children's 
good." She did not know that I was near, but I felt that the angel 
of death was. Then she sang, clearly and triumphantly : 

" My hfted eye without a tear 
The gathering storm shall see, 
My steadfast heart shall know no fear. 
That heart is stayed on Thee." 

She passed away from us at Granville, Ohio, July 25, 1859. 
We were staying there at the time with an experienced physician 
and dear friend, Dr. Bancroft, hoping his skill might avail to keep 
her with us. But, 

" So pure her heart was in each feeling ; 
So fair her face in its revealing, 
Surely the angels thought that she 
Was one of their bright company. 
And on some homeward errand driven 
Hurried her, too, away to Heaven." 

I cannot think of her without recalling the lines : 



50 Solomon Sturges 

" Earth hath one loving spirit less. 
And Heaven one angel more, 
Then write above the name we bless. 
Not dead but gone before." 

We laid her to rest in beautiful Woodlawn Cemetery. In the 
old church, January 7, 1877, sixteen years later. Dr. Kingsbury, 
in his memorial service, paid this tribute to her: "Mrs. Sturges 
was of a most retiring disposition, unpretending, discreet and 
lovely; a sincere and faithful disciple, adoring the doctrine of God, 
her Saviour, in all things; a most devoted wife and mother, active 
in duty and heroic in suffering ; a steadfast friend and peacemaker, 
a generous patron of the Sabbath School and the benefactress of 
her Pastor." 

I cannot finish this imperfect sketch of mother's life without 
speaking of the important part she played in the life of my father. 
Always patient and loving, she was a wall of protection about 
him. He idolized her, and knew little happiness after she left us. 
He survived her five years, but they were years of labor and sor- 
row; and one beautiful October day, his six sons laid him to sleep 
by mother's side. A shaft of Aberdeen granite, erected by his nine 
children in memory of their father and mother, marks their resting 
place in Woodlawn cemetery. 

May I chronicle here, a memorable Thanksgiving day? The 
family gathering was held on the 24th of November, 1870, in the 
hall built by brother Ebenezer Buckingham for our entertainment.^ 
All the hving descendants were present to honor the memory of 
our beloved dead. Father's and mother's portraits were wreathed 
with smilax and were united with nine links of evergreen. Over 
father's portrait were the words in arbor vitse, " A good man 
leaveth an inheritance to his children;" and over mother's, "Her 
children shall arise and call her blessed." Brother Eb. and his 
beautiful wife, my sister Lucy, were our gracious entertainers, and 
we had toasts and speeches, music and laughter, feasting and 

1 The hall was in Mr. Buckingham's home at the northwest corner of Huron 
and St. Clair streets, which was destroyed in the great fire of October, 1871. 



The Residence of Solomon Sturges 
At Putnam, Ohio 



arniwrJJirjH^l 



Recollections of Lucy Hale Sturges 51 

dancing. I remember how glad I felt when I danced the old 
Virginia reel with my six brothers. We little dreamed how soon 
a holocaust of fire would turn that beautiful home to ashes. 

Our next family reunion was held in this home of mine, 5021 
Washington Avenue, Chicago, on April 14, 1896, the 100th anni- 
versary of father's birth. I beheve there were thirty-five children, 
grandchildren and great-grandchildren present. At the noon hour 
we had an old-fashioned dinner of the good things we loved in our 
childhood, and father's grandson and namesake, Solomon Sturges, 
asked the blessing. We celebrated another anniversary on May 22, 
1900, the 100th anniversary of the birthday of our mother, and all 
the descendants who could come, assembled to honor the "vir- 
tuous woman whose price is far above rubies," — the mother, 
whose children "arise and call her blessed" — the saint in whose 
footsteps we all would follow. 

The home of my childhood still stands on Woodlawn Avenue, 
once Putnam, now Zanesville. 

Dear Home ! How sad and desolate ! 

None answer to my call ; 

Strange shadows wait about the gate. 

Strange voices fill the hall. 

Four brothers rest in quiet peace 

By Lake Geneva's shore; 

Think'st thou my love for them can cease ? 

Shall I see them no more ? 

Two sisters sleep 'neath Woodlawn's shade, 

They sleep and give no sign, 

Yet shall my fond heart be afraid 

That they're no longer mine ? 

Their graves are green, they may be seen 

While brother Frank, and I, 

Still walking here, are keeping dear 

Their blessed memory. 

As once the village maid so small 

Persisted " We are seven," 



52 Solomon Sturges 

So mother and father, I recall 

Sisters and brothers, one and all 

And say, "We are eleven." 

Still the forms of the departed 

Enter at the open door, 

The beloved, the true-hearted 

Come to visit us once more; 

And with them the being beauteous 

Who unto my youth was given, 

More than all things else to love me. 

And is now a saint in Heaven. 

With a slow and noiseless footstep 

Comes that messenger divine, 

Takes the vacant chair beside me. 

Lays her gentle hand in mine, 

And she sits and gazes at me, 

With those deep and tender eyes, 

Like the stars so still and saint-like. 

Looking downward from the skies. 

Uttered not, yet comprehended. 

Is the spirit's voiceless prayer — 

Soft rebukes, in blessings ended. 

Breathing from those lips of air. 

Oh! though oft depressed and lonely. 

All our fears are laid aside. 

When we but remember only 

Such as these have lived and died. 

" For Love will dream and Faith will trust, 

Since He who knows our need is just. 

That somehow, somewhere, meet we must. 

Alas for him who never sees 

The stars shine through his cypress trees. 

Who hath not learned in hours of faith 

The truth, to flesh and sense unknown, 

That Life is ever Lord of death 

And Love can never lose its own." 



; 

the f 
of th 



Je 



I Li 



GENEALOGICAL TABLE 

OF THE 

ancestors of 
Mrs. Lucy Hale Sturges 



Compiled by James Buckingham 
of Zanesville, Ohio 



Double Ihc number before any name and you have Ihal of 
ibe fjlber; aJd one to the doubled number and you have that 
of the mothet. 



Benjamin Hale 
b. Oct. 30, .-50 
d. Dec. 24, 1S31 
m. Dec. 23. 1783 



I'hilo Hale 
b. Mar. 16. 
2», 1847; m 
Butler 


178s; d. Oct. 
Caroline M. 


Hannah Hale 
b. Nov. 14, 


1786; d. Mar. 
Rev. Prince 


Timothy Hale 
I). Oct. 14, 
19, 1819; m 


1788; d. July 
Ann Hale 



Benjamin Hale 
b. Sept. 16, i7po; d. Sept. 
1859; m. Laymia Talcott 

Eunice Hate 
b. Oct. 22, 1792; d. Feb. 
28, 1843; m. Ebenczyr 
Buckingham 



,.''El 



ingham 

Jerusha Merrick Hale 
b. Sept. 19 

Sturges 

'T.ucy Hale 

Sturges. 



Apr. 
Perry 



Capt. Timothy Hale 
b. Aug. 3, 1727 
d. June 25, 1801 
I St Reg. Conn, 
Militiu in Rev. 
War 



Hannah Hale 
b. May 9, 
d. Feb. 28, 



Martha Welle.-i 
b. Aug. 12. 1-59 
d. Apr. 2. 1837 



William Welles 
b. Mar. 3. >7*4 
d. Apr. 12, 1778 



Ann Shelton 
.1. May 26, 



1763 



S f Timothy Hale 

1 b. — , 1692 

I d. Aug. 9. 1784 



9 I, .Sarah Frary 

d. Sept. 7, 1770 



neniamin Hale 
b. July 22, I 



Jan. 30, 1729 



I, Hannah Talcott 
b. Oct. 16. 1706 
d. Feb. 6, 1796 



Thomas Welles 
b. Feb. 14. 1692 
d. May 14. '7^,S 



I! I Martha Pitkii 



14 r Joseph Shelton 
* b. June 24. >65<; 



16 f Thomas Hale 

b. . 1653 

'. d. Dec. 23, 1723 
m. Oct. 30, 1679 
' ^ Naomi Kilbourne 
b. . 1656 



■8 r Sat 



ii r Samuel Hale, b. 1615; d. 

1693; m. 1640 
H [ Mary Wells 

j4 c John Kilbourne, b. Sept. 29, 
J 1624: d. Apr. 9, 1703: m 
I "650 

)S [ Naomi ; d. Oct. i, 1659 

j6 I Elizur Frary 



68 I Thomas Kilbourne. 1 
i d. 1648 

69 I Frances . d. 



71 f Isaac Graves 



I I Sarah Boardman 

b. — , 1673 

d. , 1734 

' I Lieut. Samuel Hale 

I b, -, 1645 

I d. Nov. 18, 1711 



J8J 
!9l 



Samuel Hale (see no. 32) 
Mary Wells 



Welles. Came 

to Salem, Mass. 

1629; b. 1570; 

1660 

int. wid. John 



Dec. 28, 1715 



d. Feb. 18, :7i5 



.Sarah Hollister 
b. Oct. 25. 1676 
d. Oct. 15, 171 5 



i4 ( 0-apt. Samuel Welle: 
] b. Apr. 13, 1660 
\ d. Aug. 28. 173J 
I , m. June 20, 1683 

15 [ t^uth Rice 

b. Sept. 24, 1658 
d. Mar. 31, 1742 



41 I Elizabeth Hollister, d. 



44 f Samuel Talcott, b. 1635; d. 



4S I Hannah Holyoke, b. Jur 
1644; d. Feb. 2, 1678 



46 f John Hollister, b. 1642 
Nov. 24, 1711; m. Nov 
J 1667 



47 L Sarah Goodrich, 



48 f Capt. Samuel Welle 



Gov. Thorn; 
from Eng 

^"Tan.'^' 

Elizabeth I 

Dunning 



John Hollister, 
first settlers 
field. Conn.; 
d. Apr., 1665 

Joanna Treat, d. 



Dorothy Smith, d. Feb. 1670 



Holyoke, d. Feb. 6, 



174 r Richard Trea 

17s [ Joanna . 

176 ( John Talcott 



^apt. aar 
See No. 



49 I Elizabeth Hollister 



"H 



Nov. 20, 
■657 
:e No. 86 



1640; d. Oct. 
John Hollister. 
Joanna Treat 
William Goodri 



Sarah Marvin, b. 1632; d. 
1703 

Gov. Thomas Welles 

Elizabeth Hunt 

John Hollister. See No. 86 

Joanna Treat 



Eng., 1636; m. 

1612; d. May 4, 

Prudence Stockton 



Williara Goodrich 

. Stillman 

Matthew Marvin, 

(1. 1680 
Elizabeth . 1 



Richard Treat 
Joanna • 



Hi/ John Talcott of 
'1 Colchester 

154/ William Skinner 



^64 I John Pynchon 
1<>S Orchard 



John Pynchon 
. Jane Emjison 



1600; 

1604 



16 f 'Villiam Pitkin 



S» I Hon. William Pitkin, b. 
1636; d. Dec. 15, 1694; 



d. Apr. 5, 1723 S! ' Hannah C, 



May ■>. '7'6 



aniel Shelton 
Merchant of 
London 

d. . '728 

m. Apr. 4. 1692 
29 L jyiiahelli Welles 



)0 ' Jiohn Hollister 
I b. Aug. — . 166; 
I d. July 9. '74* 



S4 I Caleb Stanley, b. 1642; d 
J May IS, 1710; m. 1665 

Si I Hannah Cowles. d. 1690 



59 I Elizabeth Holli: 



60 f John Holli! 



104 I Roger Pitkin, of Norwich, 
\ Eng. 

105 t 

. -; J »■» f George Goodwin 

106' Osias Goodwin, b, 1596; d. J 

\ Apr., 1683 11) I |;;i|en Smith 



108 r Timothy Stanley 

109 1 

110 1^ John Cowles, d, Sept., 1677 



116 f Gov. Thomas Welles 

117 I Elizabeth Hunt 

118 j John Hollister. Set No. 86 

119 I Joanna Treat 

110 J John Hollister. See No. 86 

111 I Joanna Treat 

,„ r William Goodrich. See No. 



61 1 Sarah Goodrich 



111 1 Sarah Marvin 



«J8J Richard Treat 

*J9 I Joanna 

Ml J Richard Treat 

»4I I Joanna 

»44/ William Goodrich 

**' ' Stillman 

*•*/ Matthew Marvin 
**'' Elizabeth . 



DESCENDANTS OF 

SOLOMON STURGES 



DESCENDANTS OF SOLOMON STURGES 



FIRST GENERATION 

1. SOLOMON ^ STURGES of Putnam (now a part of Zanes- 
ville), Ohio, and Chicago, Illinois, fourth son of Dimon and Sarah 
(Perry) Sturges of Fairfield, Connecticut, was born in Fairfield, 
April 21, 1796, and died in Zanesville, Ohio, October 14, 1864. 
He married in Glastonbury, Connecticut, August 14, 1823, Lucy 
Hale, fifth and youngest daughter of Benjamin and Martha 
(Welles) Hale of that town. She was born in Glastonbury, May 22, 
1800, and died in Granville, Ohio, July 25, 1859. Their children 
were: 

2+ i William Sturges, b. May 27, 1824 

3+ ii Sakah Sturges, b. Sept. 23, 1826 

4+ iii Shelton Sturges, b. Aug. 7, 1828 

5+ iv Lucy Sturges, b. Aug. 15, 1831 

6+ V Buckingham Sturges, b. June 4, 1833 

7+ vi Albert Sturges, b. Nov. 5, 1835 

8+ vii George Sturges, b. May 13, 1838 

9+ viii Kate Sturges, b. July 9, 1840 

10+ ix Frank Sturges, b. Oct. 10, 1842 

SECOND GENERATION 

2. WILLIAM 2 STURGES, eldest son of Solomon (1) and 
Lucy (Hale) Sturges, was born in Putnam, Ohio, May 27, 1824, 
and died in Owego, New York, November 12, 1894. When he 
arrived at the age of twenty-one, his father established him in 

55 



56 Solomon Sturges 

business on his own account, relinquishing in his favor, his interest 
in the store in Putnam, owned by him and Alvah Buckingham. 
At the same time Mr. Buckingham gave his interest to his eldest 
son, Benjamin Hale Buckingham, and thus the firm of Bucking- 
ham & Sturges was formed in the spring of 1845. Not long after 
another cousin, John Buckingham, son of Ebenezer and Eunice 
(Hale) Buckingham, was admitted to the partnership. William, 
who was ambitious and restless, soon became desirous of a wider 
field. In the course of a year or two he withdrew and removed to 
New York city, where, with John L. Adams, he established the 
house of Adams & Sturges, forwarding and commission merchants. 
He continued in this firm until 1853, when, an opportunity pre- 
senting itself to form a business connection with Rowland Ellis of 
Cincinnati, he sold his interest to his cousin, John Buckingham, 
who, in 1848, had also removed to New York. Ellis had the repu- 
tation of being a shrewd and successful financier. The banking 
houses of Ellis & Sturges at Cincinnati, and Sturges & Ellis at 
New York started under favorable auspices and for some years 
conducted business with great success, but in the panic of August, 
1857, they were carried down and forced to suspend. Confident 
that their assets were more than ample to meet their liabilities, 
William began settling claims in full, but the shrinkage in values 
that followed the financial storm soon put an end to this, and it 
became apparent that they were hopelessly insolvent. 

From the effects of this disaster Wilham never fully recovered. 
He returned to his father's house in Putnam, and, after an interval 
of inactivity, became a clerk in the bank of Solomon Sturges & 
Co., in Zanesville. There he continued until early in 1859, when 
he removed to Chicago and took a position with the firm of Sturges, 
Buckingham & Co. When, in the latter part of 1860, his father 
established the banking house of Solomon Sturges & Sons, Wil- 
liam, though prevented by his outstanding liabilities from becom- 
ing one of the partners, and nominally relegated to the status of a 
clerk, took a leading part in the management, which, as his father's 
health failed, was largely left to his direction. After his father's re- 
tirement he occupied a similar position with the bank of Solomon 



Descendants of Solomon Sturges 57 

Sturges' Sons until 1866, when its affairs were closed and its de- 
posit accounts turned over to the Northwestern National Bank. 

During the remainder of his life William was engaged in varied 
activities. From 1867 to 1870 he was employed by his brothers, 
Buckingham and Albert, to assist them in their enterprise of build- 
ing the Leavenworth, Lawrence and Galveston Railroad. For 
two years William was the President of the company, and after- 
ward its Vice President. During this period his Chicago office was 
at the Burlington Warehouse, State and Sixteenth streets. One of 
his most important employments in later life was the raising of 
capital for the Capitol Freehold Land and Development Company, 
Limited — a corporation formed to take over from John V. Farwell 
of Chicago and his associates, an enormous body of land in Texas, 
acquired by them from that state in payment for building the State 
House at Austin. While upon this service William hved for several 
years in London. 

William Sturges was a man of broad sympathies and generous 
impulses. In 1853, when he was at the height of his prosperity, 
he gave $10,000 to the Ohio Wesleyan University, at Delaware, 
Ohio, for the purchase of books as a beginning of a college library, 
upon the condition that the trustees should raise the sum of $15,000 
for the erection of a library building. This condition was complied 
with and the building, now used as a chemical laboratory and class 
room, bears the name of Sturges Hall. 

Mr. Sturges married, 1st, in Zanesville, Ohio, March 23, 1847, 
Carohne Amelia Potwin, daughter of John Stoughton and Sophia 
(Marsh) Potwin, of Burlington, Vermont. She was born in New 
Jersey, November 5, 1827; died in Chicago, November 14, 1874; 
and was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, Zanesville. By her Mr. 
Sturges had no children. He married, 2d, in New York city, 
October 8, 1876, Bessie McLeod, who was bom in Cincinnati, 
Ohio, January 24, 1857, daughter of John D. and Mary (Lannon) 
McLeod, and by her had issue : 

11-1- i Alberta Sturges, b. Sept. 17, 1877 
12-1- ii HoLLiSTER Sturges, b. June 14, 1879 



58 Solomon Sturges 

Mrs. Bessie McLeod Sturges was married, 2d, on September 9, 
1895, to Francis H. Leggett of New York city, by whom she has 
one child: Francis Howard Leggett, bom in New York, Novem- 
ber 30, 1896. 

3. SARAH 2 STURGES, eldest daughter of Solomon (1) and 
Lucy (Hale) Sturges, was born in Putnam, Ohio, September 23, 
1826, and died in Zanesville, April 20, 1892. She hved all her life 
in Putnam, where she was married on August 8, 1848, by the Rev. 
Addison Kingsbury, to Charles Wolcott Potwin, a merchant and 
banker of Zanesville, son of John Stoughton and Sophia (Marsh) 
Potwin of Burlington, Vermont, and brother of Caroline Potwin, 
the first wife of Sarah's brother, William Sturges. Mr. Potwin 
was born in New York city, December 12, 1819, and died in Zanes- 
ville, July 9, 1889. 

Children : 

13+ i Lucy Sturges Potwin, b. Nov. 16, 1849 

14+ ii Julia Marsh Potwin, b. Sept. 26, 1851 

15+ iii Cara Potwin, b. Nov. 18, 1855 

16+ iv Charles Albert Potwin, b. June 10, 1858 

17+ V Kate Benton Potwin, b. Jan. 12, 1862 

4. SHELTON ^ STURGES, second son of Solomon (1) and 
Lucy (Hale) Sturges, was born in Putnam, Ohio, August 7, 1828, 
and died in Chicago, June 21, 1888. From 1850 until 1861 he 
lived on the farm at Duncan's Falls on the Muskingum river, nine 
miles below Zanesville, which his father gave him at the time of 
his marriage. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Shelton en- 
listed in the 24th Ohio volunteers, was chosen Captain of Com- 
pany B; was later promoted to be Major of the regiment; and, 
after a little more than a year of active service, he was honorably 
discharged in November, 1862. Returning to his farm, after hav- 
ing spent a short time in Chicago, he remained there until late in 
1863 or early in the following year when he removed to Chicago, 
and for about a year and a half was one of the partners in the bank 
of Solomon Sturges' Sons. In 1865 he withdrew from that firm. 



Solomon Sturges 

Mt. about 60. From the Portrait by Healy, in the possession 

of Mrs. Benton 



<0<t ^ilt fii 



M fuo^-i .OdiFJocffi .t 



r 



Descendants of Solomon Sturges 59 

his brothers George and Frank also leaving it at the same time. 
Shelton then co-operated with George in founding the Northwest- 
ern National Bank of Chicago, but took no active part in its man- 
agement. In the same year he became a member of the firm of 
Lewis, Ham & Co., dealers in paints, oils, and glass. A few 
months later the firm of Sturges, McAllister & Co., warehousemen 
and wool commission merchants, was formed. The partners were 
Shelton Sturges and Jesse McAllister. At first they were located 
at numbers 2, 4, and 6 Rush street, but in 1869 they removed to 
80 and 82 Wabash avenue. Shortly before the great fire of 1871 
the firm sold out its business; that of Lewis, Ham & Co. was closed 
some time in 1867 or 1868, a part of its activity being continued 
for awhile by Shelton's nephew, James Dwight Sturges, under the 
style of the " Chicago Oil Works." 

After this Shelton did not again engage in mercantile business. 
The opportunities afforded by the far west, then made for the first 
time readily accessible through the completion of the Union and 
Central Pacific railways, attracted him and he purchased a fine 
ranch property in California, near Santa Barbara. This he held 
for some years, but finally lost it through a defect in the title. At 
the time of his death he was engaged in the enterprise of estab- 
lishing in Mexico, near the Arizona fine (since found, upon a re- 
survey of the boundary, to be in the United States), under a con- 
cession from the Mexican government, the Ortiz Ranch — a large 
stock raising plant, which he had already to a considerable extent 
equipped. 

The last twenty years of Shelton's life were for the most part 
spent at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, where he was the pioneer of 
the Chicago colony that has since grown to such considerable pro- 
portions. Impressed by the natural beauty of the place, he bought 
a large and finely situated body of land there, sweeping up from 
the shore of the lake, built upon it a handsome residence, and 
removed thither with his family. This was prior to the great 
Chicago fire of 1871. Later he diminished the original area of his 
purchase at Lake Geneva, by selling from it the very considerable 
portions upon which his brother George Sturges, and the late 



60 Solomon Sturges 

Levi Z. Leiter built their summer homes. His own house, after 
his death, was sold to Henry H. Porter. 

Mr. Sturges married in Marietta, Ohio, May 13, 1850, Frances 
Rowena Nye, daughter of Arius and Rowena (Spencer) Nye of 
Marietta. She was born November 27, 1826, and died in Chicago, 
April 30, 1890. Mr. and Mrs. Sturges are buried in the cemetery 
at Lake Geneva. They had six children, all bom in Duncan's 
Falls, Ohio: 

18+ i Rowena Spencer Sturges, b. Oct. 26, 1852 

19+ ii Helen Sturges, b. July 30, 1854 

20+ iii William Spencer Sturges, b. Mar. 3, 1856 

21+ iv Harold Sturges, b. Feb. 24, 1858 

22 V Shelton Sturges, b. Jan. 22, 1860 

23 vi Virginia Sturges, b. April 1 ; d. July 30, 1863 

5. LUCY 2 STURGES, second daughter of Solomon (1) and 
Lucy (Hale) Sturges, was bom in Putnam, Ohio, August 15, 1831, 
and was educated at the seminary in that town. At the age of 
twenty, she accompanied her cousin (who was two years her senior), 
Mrs. Julia Buckingham Cox,^ and her husband, the late Hon. 
Samuel Sullivan Cox,^ on the memorable tour of the three to the 
Old World, chronicled by him, with frequent allusions to the young- 
est of the party, in his well-known and amusing work " A Buckeye 
Abroad." It was from a passage in that book, extensively read at 
the time it was issued, that Mr. Cox derived his national soubriquet 
of " Sunset " Cox. From that journey the youthful Lucy returned 
laden with a wealth of recollections and other treasures. She was 
married in Putnam, May 5, 1853, by the Rev. Addison Kings- 
bury, to Ebenezer Buckingham, son of Ebenezer and Eunice 
(Hale) Buckingham of Putnam. Mr. Buckingham was born in 
Putnam, January 16, 1829. At the time of his marriage he was a 
banker and commission merchant in Zanesville. Shortly after- 

1 Daughter of Alvah and Anna (Hale) Buckingham. 

2 Mr. Cox, then of Zanesville, but later of Columbus, was in 1854, at the age of 
thirty, appointed by President Pierce as Secretary of Legation to Great Britain. In 
1885 and 1886 he was President Cleveland's Minister to Turkey. He was for eight 
years Congressman from Ohio, and for eighteen years from New York city. 



Descendants of Solomon Sturges 61 

ward he removed to New York for a short time, then back to Zanes- 
ville, and in November, 1859, to Chicago, which has since been 
his home. Mrs. Buckingham died in Chicago, July 6, 1889, and 
was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, Zanesville. 
Children : 

24 i Clarence Buckingham, b. in Zanesville, Nov. 2, 1854 

25 ii Kate Sturges Buckingham, b. in Zanesville, Aug. 3, 

1858 

26 iii Lucy Maud Buckingham, b. in Chicago, Sept. 9, 1870 

6. BUCKINGHAM 2 STURGES, third son of Solomon (1) 
and Lucy (Hale) Sturges, was born in Putnam, Ohio, June 4, 
1833, and died in Chicago, April 9, 1889. He began his business 
career in the bank of Solomon Sturges & Co. at Zanesville, of 
which he was for several years the cashier. In 1860 he removed 
to Chicago and, after a few months during which he was a clerk 
for Sturges, Buckingham & Co., he became one of the partners 
in the banking house of Solomon Sturges & Sons, established 
that year. In this firm and that of Solomon Sturges' Sons, which 
succeeded it, he remained until the business was closed up in 1866. 
When the Northwestern National Bank of Chicago was organized 
in 1864, he became its president, but held the office for a few 
months only, other interests requiring his undivided attention. 
At or about this time, in connection with his brother Albert, he 
had opened a banking house under the firm name of Sturges & 
Co. at the then newly established Union Stock Yards, which had 
been formed to do away with the great inconvenience to the general 
market arising from the widely separated yards in which the rail- 
roads entering Chicago had theretofore received and cared for 
consignments of five stock, each railroad having its own yard. 
The importance of banking facihties to the large trade which in 
constantly increasing volume developed at this new centre, was 
early recognized by the two brothers. The " Union Stock Yards 
Bank," as they called it, of Sturges & Co., was conducted by them 
for some time, very successfully, but in 1867 they sold it to Samuel 
M. Nickerson and his associates, who, on March 8, 1868, incor- 



62 Solomon Sturges 

porated it under the National Bank Act, as the Union Stock Yards 
National Bank. 

As long as Buckingham lived, his association with his brother 
Albert was extremely close. Together, in the later " sixties," they 
owned and conducted the large warehouse in Chicago, located at 
the northwest corner of State and Sixteenth streets, and occupying 
the whole of that part of the block lying south of the tracks of the 
Illinois Central Railroad. This was then known as the Burlington 
Warehouse. In its upper story there was a large pubUc hall, called 
"Burlington Hall." 

Buckingham and Albert were also at this period associated 
together in building the Leavenworth, Lawrence & Galveston 
Railroad, which was afterward sold to the Atchison, Topeka & 
Santa Fe Railroad Company and now forms a part of its system. 

Buckingham Sturges was, until his death, the managing trustee 
in the trust to which his father, Solomon Sturges, in the year pre- 
ceding his decease, had by a deed committed nearly the whole of 
his estate. Embraced in that estate were very large bodies of land 
in Ohio, Indiana, IlHnois, Wisconsin, and indirectly in Missouri, 
which, in connection with its other important assets, made the 
trust one of great magnitude and responsibiUty. His duties in 
connection with it were performed by Mr. Sturges with marked 
fidelity. 

In 1873, Buckingham bought a farm at Lake Geneva, Wiscon- 
sin, separated only by the highway, from the tract owned by his 
brother Shelton. Ten years later he built upon this estate the house 
named " Fair Fields " which was thenceforth his home, and is still 
occupied by his family. 

Mr. Sturges married in St. Louis, Missouri, October 18, 1865, 
Susan Rachel Benton, who was born in Springfield, Ohio, Feb- 
ruary 19, 1838, daughter of Oliver and Nancy (Evans) Benton of 
Springfield, Ohio, afterward of Wapello, Iowa. By her he had 
four children, all born in Chicago. 

27 i Benton Sturges, b. Aug. 15, 1866 

28 ii Charles Benton Sturges, b. Mar. 8; d. Mar. 31, 1868 



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Descendants of Solomon Sturges 63 

29 iii Katy Benton Sturges, b. Aug. 7, 1869 

30 iv Lily Benton Sturges, b, Sept. 21, 1871 

7. ALBERT 2 STURGES, fourth son of Solomon (1) and 
Lucy (Hale) Sturges, was born in Putnam, Ohio, November 5, 
1835, and died in Chicago, March 17, 1900. Arriving at the age 
of twenty-one, his father established him in business as proprietor 
of a flouring mill in Beverly, Ohio, on the Muskingum river, some 
forty miles below Zanesville. There he remained until 1859 when 
he removed to Chicago, to enter the service of Sturges, Buckingham 
& Co. A year later he became one of the partners of Solomon 
Sturges & Sons, with which firm and its successor, Solomon 
Sturges' Sons, he was actively connected until the business was 
closed in 1866. As related in the preceding sketch of Buckingham 
Sturges, Albert was connected with him at this period in estab- 
lishing a banking house at the Union Stock Yards, and later was 
his partner in the Burlington Warehouse, and in building the 
Leavenworth, Lawrence & Galveston Railroad. Still later he 
devoted himself to the development of the San Felix mine, in the 
state of Sonora, Mexico, about twenty miles from the coast of the 
Gulf of California. While engaged in this enterprise he hved for 
a number of years at the mine, returning at intervals to visit his 
home and family. 

Albert Sturges married in Zanesville, Ohio, March 5, 1856, 
Eliza Graham, daughter of Benjamin and Katharine (Large) 
Graham.^ She was born in Zanesville, November 19, 1835; died 
in Chicago, July 17, 1887, and was interred in the cemetery at 
Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Mr. and Mrs. Sturges had fifteen chil- 
dren, all born in Chicago : 

31 i Kate Graham Sturges, b. Feb. 23, 1857; d. Mar. 30, 

1863 

32 ii Washington Graham Sturges, b. July 1, 1858 

1 Benjamin Graham was born in Richmond, Virginia, December 10, 1807, and 
died May 20, 1880. His wife, Katharine Large, whom he married in Beavertown, 
Ohio, March 21, 1833, was born in Hocking county, Ohio, December 23, 1817, 
and died, October 17, 1903. 



64 Solomon Sturges 

33 iii Frank Hale Sturges, b. Aug. 19, 1859; d. Feb. 8, 

1863 

34 iv Albert Hale Sturges, b. Jan. 30; d. May 13, 1861 

35 V Arthur Percy Sturges, b. Nov. 1, 1862; d. Feb. 8, 

1863 

36 vi Mary Delafield Sturges, b. Mar. 23, 1864 
37+ vii Solomon Sturges, b. Oct. 18, 1865 

38 viii Lucy Hale Sturges, b. Dec. 27, 1866; d. May 18, 

1868 

39 ix Harry Humphrey Sturges, b. Feb. 8; d. July 24, 

1868 

40 X Alletta Sturges, b. Sept. 18; d. Oct. 12, 1869 

41 xi Theodore Sturges, b. and d. June 9, 1871 

42 xii Flora Sturges, b. Nov. 15, 1872; d. Dec. 16, 1873 

43 xiii Ida Sturges, b. Nov. 24; d. Nov. 28, 1873 

44 xiv Paul Sturges, b. Jan. 7; d. Jan. 17, 1875 

45 XV Dora Sturges, b. April 21; d. Dec. 30, 1876 

8. GEORGE 2 STURGES, fifth son of Solomon (1) and Lucy 
(Hale) Sturges, was born in Putnam, Ohio, May 13, 1838, and 
died at "Snug Harbor," his summer residence in Lake Geneva, 
Wisconsin, August 12, 1890. At the age of seventeen he came to 
Chicago with his father and took a position as clerk in the office of 
Sturges, Buckingham & Co. In this employment he continued 
about four years, until 1859, when, being ambitious to get into 
business on his own account, he formed a partnership with his 
brother-in-law Ebenezer Buckingham, and they leased the old 
Fulton elevator, located on the north bank of the Chicago river, 
westward from Rush street, and formed the firm of George Sturges 
& Co., warehousemen and buyers and shippers of grain. After 
about a year, Mr. Buckingham retired, and Mr. Sturges continued 
the business alone. He was successful from the outset, as, indeed, 
he was in all his undertakings. When the firm of Solomon Sturges' 
Sons was formed in 1863, to succeed Solomon Sturges & Sons 
(in which only Solomon, Buckingham and Albert were partners), 
George, together with Shelton and Frank, became partners and 



Descendants of Solomon Sturges 65 

continued in that relation for something more than a year, when 
they withdrew, leaving Buckingham and Albert to continue. 
George and Shelton then co-operated with their cousin Stephen 
Buckingham Sturges, a banker of experience and sagacity, in 
founding the Northwestern National Bank of Chicago, which 
opened its doors on August 15, 1864, at 61 Dearborn street. Buck- 
ingham Sturges was the president, Stephen Buckingham Sturges 
the vice-president, and George Sturges, the cashier. After a 
few months, Buckingham retired from the presidency and was 
succeeded by Colonel Charles Granville Hammond, a gentleman 
of high personal and financial station in the community, then long 
identified with the management of the Chicago, Burlington & 
Quincy Railroad Company, and for a considerable period the 
general superintendent of its lines. Colonel Hammond's con- 
nection with the bank lasted only about a year. He then yielded 
the presidency to George Sturges. At or about the same time 
Stephen Buckingham Sturges resigned as vice-president and re- 
moved to Brooklyn, New York, where thenceforward he made 
his home; and John deKoven came into the bank as cashier. 
Tliis was at the beginning of the year 1867. The same year the 
office of the bank was removed to room No. 1 in the new building 
of the Chamber of Commerce, southeast corner of LaSalle and 
Washington streets. This building was destroyed in the great 
fire of 1871, and for a time thereafter, the bank was installed tem- 
porarily in Dr. Reuben Ludlam's residence on Wabash avenue 
near Twelfth street. An office was then rented in the Lind Block, 
near Randolph street bridge. This was occupied until the Cham- 
ber of Commerce was rebuilt, when the bank returned to its former 
location. In the spring of 1876, more commodious quarters were 
secured in the Reaper Block at the northeast corner of Washing- 
ton and Clark streets. These were occupied until May, 1888, 
when the growing business compelled another removal, this time 
to the Rookery Building, southeast corner of LaSalle and Adams 
streets. 

In May, 1872, Mr. deKoven severed his connection with the 
bank to become cashier of the Merchants National Bank of 



66 Solomon Sturges 

Chicago, and on April 7, 1873, was succeeded as cashier of the 
Northwestern National Bank, by James Dwight Sturges, son of 
Hezekiah and Maria (Allen) Sturges. James, who had been the 
general bookkeeper in the bank for a short time when it was first 
organized, but had left to take a position with Lewis, Ham & Co., 
continued as cashier until June 7, 1883, when he resigned, and 
was succeeded by Frederick William Gookin, who held the office 
until the bank was consolidated with the Corn Exchange National 
Bank of Chicago, in September, 1900. 

Under the exceptionally capable management of George Sturges 
the Northwestern National Bank won an enviable reputation in 
the financial world. He early developed ability of a high order. 
Prudent, sagacious and far-seeing, he steadily built up a fortune 
and a well-deserved reputation as a banker. He was the prime 
mover in the establishment of the Chicago Clearing House, and 
gave himself little rest until the former burdensome and hazardous 
method of daily settlements between the banks — involving as it 
did, deUveries of checks by each bank, through its messengers, to 
each of the others, and separate equalizations in each case, in 
currency — ^was swept away. To faciUtate the new order of things, 
he permitted the exchanges to be made, at first, in the office of the 
Northwestern National Bank, until a suitable room for the Clear- 
ing House could be secured. When, after the great Chicago fire, 
many of the banks in the city were in doubt as to the status of their 
bills receivable and uncertain as to the course to be pursued in 
dealing with their depositors, George Sturges for the Northwestern 
National Bank and Chauncey B. Blair for the Merchants National 
Bank boldly announced their intention of opening their doors and 
meeting all their liabilities on demand, whether the other banks 
did so or not. It required courage to take this stand at such a time, 
but it added much to the reputation of the two men, and the result 
amply justified the wisdom of the course they advocated. Again 
in 1873, when the banks were by the Chicago Clearing House 
Association, authorized and recommended to suspend currency 
payments, in view of the unsettled condition of financial affairs 
throughout the entire country, Mr. Sturges strenuously opposed 



Descendants of Solomon Sturges 67 

what he beheved to be a mistaken and unwise policy. At his in- 
stance, the directors of the Northwestern National Bank, after a 
thorough examination of its condition and assets, " Resolved, That 
this bank is abundantly able, and will protect the rights of its 
customers, and will not suspend currency payments in any event." 

After Mr, Sturges' death, his brother-in-law, Ebenezer Bucking- 
ham, succeeded him as President and continued in that capacity 
until September, 1900, when the Northwestern National Bank 
was consolidated with the Corn Exchange National Bank. 

George Sturges married in Duncan's Falls, Ohio, October 16, 
1862, Mary Delafield, daughter of John and Edith (Wallace) 
Delafield.^ She was born in Memphis, Tennessee, July 30, 1842, 
and died in Coronado, Cahfornia, January 15, 1901. Mr. and 
Mrs. Sturges had nine children, all bom in Chicago, except the 
youngest daughter, who was born in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. 

46 i Wallace Delafield Sturges, b. Sept. 27, 1863; d. 

Lake Geneva, Wis., Aug. 18, 1887, unmarried. 

47 ii Albert Sturges, b. July 12, 1865; d. Lake Geneva, 

Wis., June 19, 1882 
48+ iii Ethel Sturges, b. Oct. 23, 1866 
49+ iv Marion Delafield Sturges, b. July 18, 1870 
50+ v Rosalie Sturges, b. Dec. 14, 1873 
51+ vi Helen Sturges, b. April 6, 1876 
52+ vii Clara Delafield Sturges, b. Dec. 27, 1878 
53 viii Julia Floyd Sturges, b. Aug. 4, 1879; d. Lake 

Geneva, June 7, 1881 
54+ ix George Sturges, b. Mar. 6, 1884 

The attachment between George Sturges and his wife was deep 
and tender, and she exercised a strong influence over him almost 
from the hour of their first acquaintance. She was a woman of 
rare strength and sweetness of character and great personal charm. 
These quahties and her never-failing thoughtful kindness and 

1 John Delafield was bom in East St. George's, Bloomsbury, London, England, 
October 21, 1812. His wife Edith Wallace was born in Terre Haute, Indiana, 
April 23, 1811. 



68 Solomon Sturges 

efforts to promote the happiness of others endeared her to all whose 
privilege it was to know her. 

9. KATE 2 STURGES, third daughter of Solomon (1) and Lucy 
(Hale) Sturges, was born in Putnam, Ohio, July 9, 1840, and was 
educated at the seminary there. She was married in Chicago, 
June 18, 1863, to WilHam Henry Benton, son of Oliver and Nancy 
(Evans) Benton of Springfield, Ohio, afterward of Wapello, Iowa. 
He was born in Springfield, December 21, 1821, and died in Chi- 
cago, August 15, 1898. At the time of his marriage he was a promi- 
nent merchant in St. Louis, Missouri, where he made his home 
until November, 1885, when he removed to Chicago. 

Children, all born in St. Louis, except Lucy, who was born in 
Chicago : 

55 i Kate Sturges Benton, b. Mar. 29, 1864 

56+ ii Lucy Buckingham Benton, b. Sept. 15, 1865 

57 iii William Henry Benton, b. Aug. 30, 1868 

58 iv Sturges Benton, b. May 7; d. May 10, 1870 

59 V Julia Holmes Benton, b. Feb. 6, 1876 

60 vi Caroline Metcalf Benton, b. Oct. 24, 1881 

10. FRANK 2 STURGES, sixth and youngest son of Solomon 
(1) and Lucy (Hale) Sturges, was born in Putnam, Ohio, Octo- 
ber 10, 1842. In 1860, being then in his eighteenth year, he came 
to Chicago with his father, and for a short time was employed 
by Sturges, Buckingham & Co. as a junior clerk and messenger. 
When, a little later in the same year, the banking house of Solomon 
Sturges & Sons was established, he took a position in their office. 
This he held until 1863. In that year the firm was changed to 
Solomon Sturges' Sons, and, having arrived at the age of twenty- 
one, Frank became one of the partners, as originally provided by 
his father. About a year later he sold his interest in the firm to his 
brothers Buckingham and Albert, and became associated with 
Thomas S. Dickerson, under the firm name of Dickerson, Sturges 
& Co., wholesale dealers in metals, importers of tin plate and sheet 
iron, and manufacturers of stamped and japanned ware, at 199-201 



The Sturges Monument 
In Woodlawn Cemetery, Zanes^^lle, Ohio 



Descendants of Solomon Sturges 69 

Randolph street. In 1865, Mr. Dickerson retired, and the business 
was continued by Mr, Sturges under the firm name of Frank 
Slurges & Co., Mr. OUver H. Lee, Mr. William S. Potwin, and 
Mr. Anson C. Potwin joining liim as co-partners. Shortly before 
the great Chicago fire of 1871 the firm name was changed to 
F. Sturges & Co. By that fire the firm suffered heavy losses, 
causing temporary embarrassment. Within a short time, however, 
the business had increased to larger proportions than before the 
catastrophe occurred, and in 1875 it was reorganized as the Chicago 
Stamping Company. Mr. Sturges was the president of this corpo- 
ration until 1893, when he sold his stock and retired. Under its 
new management the company was not successful. In July, 1898, 
Mr. Sturges bought the property back. He then conducted the 
business in his own name until December, 1900, when the Sturges, 
Cornish & Burn Company was organized to take it over. A little 
later, Mr. Cornish retiring, the name was changed to the Sturges 
& Burn Manufacturing Company, of which Mr. Sturges is now 
(1907) the president. 

Mr. Sturges married in Chicago, June 23, 1864, Janette EHza- 
beth Lee (known as "Lilhe" Lee), who was born in Brooklyn, 
New York, January 7, 1846, daughter of Ohver Harrison and 
Janette (Parker) Lee of Chicago. They reside (1907) in Elmhurst, 
Illinois, which has been their home for many years. 

Children, all born in Chicago: 

61 + i Lee Sturges, b. Aug. 13, 1865 

62 ii Janette Lee Sturges, b. Jan. 31, 1868 

63 iii Lucy Hale Sturges, b. Dec. 15, 1870 

64 iv Julia Lee Sturges, b. April 15; d. Aug. 15, 1872 

THIRD GENERATION 

11. ALBERTA 3 STURGES, daughter of William (2) and 
Bessie (McLeod) Sturges, was born in Chicago, September 17, 1877. 
She was married in St, Paul's Church, Knightsb ridge, London, 
England, July 25, 1905, to George Charles Montagu, M. P., of 
London, who was born December 29, 1874, son of Admiral Victor 



70 Solomon Sturges 

Alexander Montagu (second son of John William, seventh Earl of 
Sandwich) by his wife the Lady Agneta Harriette York, second 
daughter of Charles Philip, fourth Earl of Hardwick. Mr. and 
Mrs. Montagu have one son : 

65 i Victor Alexander Edward Paulet Montagu, b. in 

London, at 12 Bruton street. May 22, 1906. At his christ- 
ening, in one of the chapels of Westminster Abbey, Queen 
Alexandra was his godmother. 

12. HOLLISTER 3 STURGES, son of William (2) and Bessie 
(McLeod) Sturges, was born in Chicago, June 14, 1879. He mar- 
ried in Washington, D. C, September 16, 1905, Jeanne Franks 
Steele, who was born January 5, 1884, daughter of Charles Stetson 
and Blanche (Whipple) Steele, and has issue: 

66 i William Hollister Sturges, b. Germantown, Pa., 

Mar. 2, 1907 

13. LUCY STURGES ^ POTWIN, eldest daughter of Charles 
Wolcott Potwin and Sarah Sturges (3) was born in Zanesville, 
Ohio, November 16, 1849, and was married in Zanesville, June 6, 
1872, to Colonel Gilbert Dwight Munson, who was born in God- 
frey, Illinois, September 26, 1840, son of Horace Dwight and 
Mary Burt (Griggs) Munson of Zanesville. At the outbreak of 
the Civil War in 1861 Mr. Munson enlisted as a private. In 1864 
he was mustered out as Colonel, having served through the war 
under Generals Sherman and Grant. He then studied law at 
Columbia College, New York; is now (1907) a resident of Los 
Angeles, California. 

Children : 

67+ i Sarah Munson, b. May 12, 1873 

68 ii Isabel Munson, b. Zanesville, Sept. 5, 1874; d. Zanes- 
ville, Aug. 1880 

14. JULIA MARSH ^ POTWIN, second daughter of Charles 
Wolcott Potwin and Sarah Sturges (3), was born in Zanesville, 
Ohio, September 26, 1851. She was married in Zanesville, Sep- 



Descendants of Solomon Sturges 71 

tember 25, 1873, to John Robb Holmes of St. Louis, Missouri, 
who was born in St. Louis, June 18, 1845, son of Robert and 
Charlotte (Powel) Holmes of St. Louis, and has issue : 

69+ i Robert Potwin Holmes, b. July 21, 1874 

70 ii John Robb Holmes, b. July 5, 1877 

71 iii Julia Holmes, b. Sept. 6, 1888 

72 iv Cara Holmes, b. Sept. 25, 1891; d. Sept. 19, 1893 

15. CARA 3 POTWIN, third daughter of Charles Wolcott 
Potwin and Sarah Sturges (3), was born in Zanesville, Ohio, 
November 18, 1855. She was married in Zanesville, September 6, 
1876, to Charles Fisher Ellis of Helena, Montana, who was born 
in St. Louis in 1840, son of Charles Draper and Hannah Bradford 
(Fisher) Ellis, and has issue: 

73 i Charles Potwin Ellis, b. St. Louis, Dec. 30, 1877; d. 

St. Louis, April 10, 1878 

74 ii Bradford Hale Ellis, b. St. Louis, July 18, 1879 

75 iii Lucy Potwin Ellis, b. May 17, 1881; d. Helena, Mon- 

tana, Oct. 16, 1890 

16. CHARLES ALBERT » POTWIN of Zanesville, Ohio, 
only son of Charles Wolcott Potwin and Sarah Sturges (3), was 
born in Zanesville, June 10, 1858. He married, 1st, in Zanesville, 
November 19, 1890, Adelaide Wheeler Stevens, daughter of Whee- 
ler and Lucy (Beach) Stevens.^ She was born in Zanesville, 
September 5, 1865, and died September 25, 1893. Mr. Potwin 
married, 2d, June 19, 1901, Marie Walker Delaplane, who was 
born in Circleville, Ohio, November 22, 1878, daughter of Jacob 
Hixon and Margaret Magdalene (Benford) Delaplane.^ 

No issue by either marriage. 

1 Wheeler Stevens was born in Chandlerville, Ohio, March 20, 1833, and died 
near Zanesville, September 2, 1902. His wife Lucy Beach, whom he married in 
Coal Run, Ohio, February 19, 1861, was born in Coal Run, August 30, 1837, and 
died near Zanesville, September 2, 1904. 

2 Jacob Hixon Delaplane was born in Yellow Bud, Ohio, March 12, 1846, and 
died in Circleville, Ohio, December 30, 1887. His wife Margaret Magdalene 
Benford, whom he married in Circleville, October 12, 1871, was born in Utica, 
Ohio, October 5, 1846. 



72 Solomon Sturges 

17. KATE BENTON ^ POTWIN, fourth daughter of Charles 
Wolcott Potwin and Sarah Sturges (3), was born in Zanesville, 
Ohio, January 12, 1862. She was married, 1st, in Zanesville, 
October 22, 1885, to Frederic W. Malcolm, who died in New York 
city in February, 1898. By him she had one child: 

76 i Alaine Malcolm, b. Zanesville, Dec. 2, 1886 

Mrs. Malcolm was married, 2d, in Pueblo, Colorado, July 19, 
1899, to Frederick O'Leary Buck, of Denver, Colorado, son of 
George Watson and Emma Maria (Williams) Buck, of Co. Nor- 
folk, England, and has issue : 

77 ii Frederick O'Leary Buck, Jr., b. Aug. 26, 1902 

18. ROWENA SPENCER 3 STURGES, eldest daughter of 
Shelton Sturges (4), was born in Duncan's Falls, Ohio, October 26, 
1852, and was married in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, December 1, 
1881, to Emerson Howard Brush, who was born in Brooklyn, 
New York, January 15, 1852, son of Joseph Beal and Sarah 
Southmaid (Atwater) Brush of New York city. Mr. and Mrs. 
Brush reside in Elmhurst, Illinois. They have no issue. 

19. HELEN 3 STURGES, second daughter of Shelton Sturges 
(4), was born in Duncan's Falls, Ohio, July 30, 1854. She was 
married in Santa Barbara, California, June 20, 1878, to Alfred 
Henry Mulliken of Chicago, by whom she had issue : 

78 i Shelton Sturges Mulliken, b. Chicago, Mar. 3, 1879; 

d. Chicago, Mar. 5, 1880 

20. WILLIAM SPENCER » STURGES, eldest son of Shelton 
Sturges (4) was born in Duncan's Falls, Ohio, March 3, 1856. 
He married, September 17, 1892, Leonor de Savin, who was born 
August 2, 1856, daughter of Adolpho and Guadalupe (Cota) de 
Savin, and hves (1907) in Arivaca, Pima county, Arizona. No 
issue. 

21. HAROLD 3 STURGES, second son of Shelton Sturges (4), 



Monument in Woodlawn Cemetery, Zanesville, Ohio 
Erected by Solomon Sturges, to the Memory of his Ancestors 



Descendants of Solomon Sturges 73 

was bom in Duncan's Falls, Oliio, February 24, 1858, and is now 
(1907) engaged in mining in Mexico. He married in San Francisco, 
California, June 20, 1883, Malvena Emma Livingston, daughter 
of George Henry and Elizabeth Emma (Jarret) Livingston of St. 
Louis, Missouri, and has two children, both born in Santa Barbara, 
California : 

79 i Livingston Monroe Sturges, b. April 10, 1885 

80 ii Rowena Spencer Sturges, b. Sept. 22, 1887 

37. SOLOMON ^ STURGES of Chicago, fifth son of Albert 
Sturges (7) was born in Chicago, October 18, 1865, and was edu- 
cated at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He began his 
business career as a broker in domestic exchange, between the 
banks in Chicago. About 1888 he formed a partnership with 
Charles A. Wilson under the firm name of Wilson & Sturges, 
stock and bond brokers. In 1896 this firm was dissolved by mutual 
consent and early in 1897 Mr. Sturges became a member of the 
stock brokerage house of Alfred L. Baker & Co. of Chicago. He 
married in Memphis, Tennessee, October 2, 1901, Mrs. Mary 
Estelle Biden, who was born October 11, 1877, daughter of Domi- 
nick d'Este and Catherine Campbell (Smyth) Dempsey. Mr. 
and Mrs. Sturges have no issue, but have adopted Mrs. Sturges' 
son by her first husband and have given him the name of 

81 i Preston Sturges. He was born August 29, 1898, and 

was adopted in January, 1902 

48. ETHEL ^ STURGES, eldest daughter of George Sturges 
(8) was born in Chicago, October 23, 1866. She was married in 
Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, October 3, 1888, to WilHam Francis 
Dummer of Chicago, who was born in Beardstown, Cass county, 
Illinois, March 17, 1851, son of Judge Henry Enoch and Phebe 
(Van Ness) Dummer ^ of Jacksonville, Illinois. 

1 Henry Enoch Dummer and Phebe Van Ness were married in Beardstown, 
Illinois, January 16, 1840. Judge Dummer was descended from Richard Dummer 
who came to America from England in 1632 and settled first in Roxbury and 
later, near Newbury, Massachusetts. 



74 Solomon Sturges 

Children : 

82 i Marion Dummer, b. Chicago, June 20, 1890 

83 ii Katharine Dummer, b. Chicago, Mar. 31, 1892 

84 iii Ethel Sturges Dummer, b. Chicago, April 13, 1895 

85 iv Frances Dummer, b. Chicago, Dec. 24, 1899 

86 V William Francis Dummer, b. Coronado, Cal., Mar. 5, 

1902; d. Lake Geneva, Wis., Aug. 18, 1902 

These children live in Chicago on the quarter block where their 
mother, Ethel Sturges Dummer, was born ; where their grandfather, 
George Sturges, and their great-grandfather, Solomon Sturges, 
lived. This is an unusual circumstance in such a new and stirring 
American city as Chicago. 

49. MARION DELAFIELD^ STURGES, second daughter 
of George Sturges (8), was born in Chicago, July 18, 1870. She 
was married in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, May 29, 1907, to Samuel 
Dauchy of Chicago, who was bom in Troy, New York, Septem- 
ber 28, 1865, son of George Kellogg and Lavinia (Otis) Dauchy 
of Chicago. 

50. ROSALIE 3 STURGES, third daughter of George Sturges 
(8), was born in Chicago, December 14, 1873. She was married 
in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, June 9, 1898, to Hubbard Foster 
Carpenter of Chicago, who was bom in Park Ridge, Illinois, 
September 29, 1874, son of George Benjamin and Elizabeth 
Curtis (Greene) Carpenter ^ of Chicago, and has two children, 
both born in Chicago. 

87 i Mary Delafield Carpenter, b. April 7, 1899 

88 ii George Sturges Carpenter, b. Jan. 22, 1901 

51. HELEN 3 STURGES, fourth daughter of George Sturges 

1 George Benjamin Carpenter, head of the well-known house of George B. Car- 
penter & Co., ship chandlers, in which his son Hubbard is one of the partners, was 
born in Richmond, Ashtabula county, Ohio, March 13, 1834. His wife, Elizabeth 
Curtis Greene, whom he married in Pittsfield, New Hampshire, March 12, 1861, 
was born in Pittsfield, March 28, 1841, and died in Chicago, June 25, 1905. 



Descendants of Solomon Sturges 75 

(8), was born in Chicago, April 6, 1876. She was married in Lake 
Geneva, Wisconsin, July 20, 1901, to her second cousin, Arthur 
DuBois, of New York city, who was born in West New Brighton, 
Staten Island, New York, January 12, 1877, son of Eugene and 
Anna Greenleaf (Brooks) DuBois of West New Brighton. Chil- 
dren, all born in West New Brighton, except Dorothy, who was 
born in Greenwich, Connecticut: 

89 i John Delafield DuBois, b. Jan. 24, 1903 

90 ii Helen Sturges DuBois, b. Jan. 22; d. June 23, 1904 

91 iii Marion Sturges DuBois, b. Dec. 6, 1905 

92 iv Dorothy DuBois, b. July 6, 1907 

52. CLARA DELAFIELD 3 STURGES, fifth daughter of 
George Sturges (8), was born in Chicago, December 27, 1878, and 
was married in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, June 21, 1905, to Wil- 
liam Templeton Johnson of New York city, who was born in West 
New Brighton, Staten Island, New York, August 31, 1877, son of 
Oliver Templeton and CaroUne Sophia (Thomas) Johnson ^ of 
West New Brighton. Mr. and Mrs. Johnson have one child: 

93 i Winthrop Templeton Johnson, b. in West New Brigh- 

ton, May 26, 1906 

54. GEORGE ^ STURGES, tliird and only surviving son of 
George Sturges (8), was bom in Chicago, March 6, 1884, and was 
graduated from Yale University in 1906. He married in Lake 
Geneva, Wisconsin, October 31, 1906, Lelia Clarissa Parker, who 
was bom in Chicago, June 30, 1878, daughter of George Green 
and Inez Luella (Knapp) Parker of Chicago. 

56. LUCY BUCKINGHAM » BENTON, second daughter of 
William Henry Benton and Kate Sturges (9), was bom in Chicago, 
September 15, 1865. She was married in Chicago, September 10, 
1902, to Edward George Evans of Worcester, England, son of 

1 Oliver Templeton Johnson was born June 29, 1851; married June 9, 1875; 
died January 80, 1891. 



76 Solomon Sturges 

Edward Robert and Clara (Glover) Evans of Worcester, and has 
issue : 

94 i Edw^ard Buckingham Benton Evans, b. Worcester, 

Mar. 12, 1904 

95 ii William Benton Evans, b. Worcester, June 10, 1905 

61. LEE 3 STURGES, only son of Frank Sturges (10) was 
born in Chicago, August 13, 1865, and was educated in Chicago 
and Philadelphia. He began his business career with the Chicago 
Stamping Company, of which he was for a time the Vice-President. 
He is now (1907) the Vice-President and Treasurer of the Sturges 
& Burn Manufacturing Company. He married at Alvanna 
Ranch, in Skiddy, Morris county, Kansas, October 1, 1890, 
Mary Allen Sullivant, who was born in Homer, Illinois, August 25, 
1872, daughter of Joseph McDowell and Mary (Allen) SulUvant. 
They reside in Elmhurst, Illinois. 

Children : 

96 i Mary Sullivant Sturges, b. Sept. 2, 1891 

97 ii Frank Sturges, b. Sept. 14, 1893 

98 iii Lucy Hale Sturges, b. Oct. 16, 1898 

FOURTH GENERATION 

67. SARAH MUNSON,'' daughter of Gilbert Dwight Munson 
and Lucy Sturges Potwin (13), was born in Zanesville, Ohio, 
May 12, 1873. She was married at the home of her uncle Ebenezer 
Buckingham in Lake Forest, Ilhnois, June 30, 1901, to A. Ernest 
Northcote of Santa Barbara, Cal., son of Lewis Stafford and Irma 
(Weguelin) Northcote, and has issue : 

99 i Lucy Isabel Northcote, b. May 8, 1902 

100 ii Bertha Elizabeth Northcote, b. Aug, 16, 1904 

101 iii Oliver Stafford Northcote, b. Sept. 25, 1906 

69. ROBERT POTWIN^ HOLMES, of Jophn, Missouri, 
eldest son of John Robb Holmes and Julia Marsh Potwin (14), 



Descendants op Solomon Sturges 77 

was born in St. Louis, Missouri, July 21, 1874. He married in 
Joplin, Missouri, June 7, 1899, Ann Picher, daughter of William 
Henry and Susan J. (Brummwell) Picher of Sedalia, Missouri, 
and has issue : 

102 i Robert Picher Holmes, b. Joplin, Mar. 22, 1901 



INDEX 



INDEX 



The names upon the genealogical tables are not included. 



Adams, John L., 56 
Adams & Sturges, 56 
Allen, Maria, 66 

Mary, 76 
Atwater, Sarah South- 
maid, 72 

Bancroft, Dr. W. W., 37, 

49 
Banks, John, 16 

Susannah, 13, 16 
Barlow, Deborah, 14, 15, 
16 
John, 14, 15 
Ruth, 16 
Beach, Lucy, 71 
Benford, Margaret Mag- 
dalene, 71 
Benton, Caroline Met- 
calf, 68 
Julia Holmes, 68 
Kate (Sturges), 9, 45, 

55, 68, 75 
Kate Sturges, 68 
Lucy Buckingham, 68, 

75 
Nancy (Evans), 62, 68 
Oliver, 62, 68 
Sturges, 68 
Susan Rachel, 62 
William Henry, 68, 

75 
William Henry, Jr., 
68 
Blair, Chauncey B., 66 
Abigail (Jackson), 16 
Bradley, Abigail, 16 
Daniel, 16 
Ebenezer, 15 
Francis, 16 
Mary (Sturges), 15 
Ruth (Barlow), 16 
Brummwell, Susan J., 77 



Brush, Emerson Howard, 
72 
Joseph Beal, 72 
Sarah Southmaid (At- 
water), 72 
Buck, Emma Maria (Wil- 
liams), 72 
Frederick O'Leary, 72 
George Watson, 72 
Buckingham, Alvah, 29, 
30, 33, 34, 35, 55, 60 
A. Buckingham & Co., 

33, 34 
Amanda, 26 

Anna (Hale), 30, 48, 

60 
Benjamin Hale, 33, 34, 

56 
Clarence, 61 
Ebenezer, 22, 25, 27, 

28-30, 33, 56, 60 
Ebenezer, Jr., 50, 60, 

64, 67, 76 
E. Buckingham, Jr., & 

Co., 29 
Esther (Cooley), 26 
Eunice (Hale), 30, 48, 

55, 60 
James, 9 
John, 29 
John, 56 
Julia, 60 
Kate Sturges, 61 
Lucy Maud, 61 
Lucy (Sturges), 50 
Milton, 33 
Sarah (Sturges), 22, 25, 

28, 29 
Stephen, 26 
Buckingham & Burlin- 

game, 35 
Buckingham & Sturges, 

34, 56 

81 



Burlingame, Rufus Put- 
nam, 35 

Burlington Warehouse, 
57, 62, 63 

Burr, Ann, 14 
Mary, 20 

Capitol Freehold Land 
& Development Co., 
57 
Carpenter, Elizabeth Cur- 
tis (Greene), 74 
George Benjamin, 74 
George Sturges, 74 
Hubbard Foster, 74 
Mary Delafield, 74 
Rosalie (Sturges), 74 
Cheney, Mary, 27 
Chicago Oil Works, 59 
Convers, Ebenezer, 47 

Kate (Buckingham), 47 
Cox, Julia (Buckingham), 
60 
Samuel Sullivan, 60 
Couch, Abigail (Sturges), 
15 
Simon, 15 

Dauchy, George Kellogg, 
74 
Lavinia (Otis), 74 
Marion Delafield (Stur- 
ges), 74 
Samuel, 74 
DeKoven, John, 65 
Delafield, Edith (Wal- 
lace), 67 
John, 67 
Mary, 67, 68 
Delaplane, Jacob, 71 
Margaret Magdalene 

(Benford), 71 
Marie Walker, 71 



82 



Index 



Dempsey, Catherine 
Campbell (Smyth), 
73 

Dominick d'Este, 73 

Mary Estelle, 73 
De Savin, Adolpho, 72 

Guadalupe (Cota), 72 

Leonor, 72 
Dickerson, Sturges& Co., 

68 
Dickerson, Thomas S., 68 
Dimon, Abigail, 20 

Abigail (Ward), 20 

Ebenezer, 20 

Esther (Sturges), 16, 20 

Jane (Pinkney), 20 

Mary (Burr), 20 

Moses, 20 

Sarah, 20 

Thomas, 20 

William, 16, 20 
DuBois, Anna Greenleaf 
(Brooks), 75 

Arthur, 75 

Dorothy, 75 

Eugene, 75 

Helen, 75 

Helen (Sturges), 75 

John Delafield, 75 

Marion Sturges, 75 
Dummer, Ethel (Sturges), 
73 

Ethel Sturges, 74 

Frances, 74 

Henry Enoch, 73 

Katharine, 74 

Marion, 74 

Phebe (Van Ness), 73 

Richard, 73 

William Francis, 73 

William Francis, Jr., 74 

Eliot, Rev. Andrew, 19 

Ellis, Bradford Hale, 71 
Cara (Potwin), 71 
Charles Draper, 71 
Charles Potwin, 71 
Hannah Bradford 

(Fisher), 71 
Lucy Potwin, 71 
Rowland, 56 

Ellis & Sturges, 56 

Evans, Edward Bucking- 
ham, 76 
Clara (Glover), 76 
Edward George, 75 
Edward Robert, 76 
Lucy Buckingham 
(Benton), 76 



Evans, Nancy, 62, 68 
William Benton, 67 

Farrer, Samuel, 34 
Farwell, John V., 57 
Fisher, Hannah Bradford, 

71 
Foote, Sarah, 16 

Gardiner, Mary, 16 
Glover, Clara, 76 
Gookin, Frederick Wil- 
liam, 9, 66 
Graham, Benjamin, 63 

Eliza, 63 

Katharine (Large), 63 
Greene, Elizabeth Cur- 
tis, 74 
Griggs, Mary Burt, 70 
Guthrie, Austin A., 22 

Hale, Anna, 30, 48, 60 
Benjamin, 26, 30, 45, 55 
Eunice, 30, 48, 56, 60 
Jerusha Merrick, 26, 47 
Lucy, 30, 31, 55, 58, 60, 

61, 63, 64, 68 
Martha (Welles), 26, 30, 
31 55 

Halsted, Caleb O., 35 

Hammond, Charles Gran- 
ville, 65 

Hardwick, Earl of, 70 

Hersey, John, 25 

Holmes, Cara, 71 

Charlotte (Powell), 71 
John Robb, 71, 76 
Julia, 71 
Julia Marsh (Potwin), 

70, 76 
Robert, 71 
Robert Picher, 77 
Robert Potwin, 71, 76 

Hosmer, Addison Augus- 
tus, 27 
Amanda(Sturges),27,47 
Eben, 27 

Mary (Cheney), 27 
S. A., 34, 35 

Jarret, Elizabeth Emma, 

73 
Johnson, Caroline Sophia 
(Thomas), 75 
Clara Delafield (Stur- 
ges), 75 
Oliver Templeton, 75 
Winthrop Templeton, 
75 



Judson, Jeremiah, 16 
Sarah, 16 
Sarah (Foote), 16 

Kingsbury, Rev. Addi- 
son, 50, 58, 60 
Knapp, Inez Luella, 75 

Leavenworth, Lawrence 
& Galveston Rail- 
road, 57, 62, 63 
Lee, Janette (Parker), 69 
Janette Elizabeth, 69 
Oliver Harrison, 69 
Leggett, Francis H., 58 
Francis Howard, 58 
Leiter, Levi Z., 60 
Lewis, Deborah, 14 
Lothrop, 14 
Sarah (Sturges), 14 
Lewis, Ham & Co., 59, 

66 
Livingston, Elizabeth 
Emma (Jarret), 73 
George Henry, 73 
Malvena Emma, 73 
Ludlam, Reuben, 65 

Malcolm, Alaine, 72 

Frederic W., 72 
Marsh, Sophia, 57, 58 
Mathews, Betsey (Lev- 
ens), 27 
Increase, 27 
Mary Sturges, 27 
McAllister, Jesse, 59 
McLeod, Bessie, 57, 58, 
69, 70 
John D., 57 
Mary (Lannon), 57 
Montagu, Agnetta Harri- 
ette (York), 70 
Alberta (Sturges), 69 
George Charles, 69 
John William, 70 
Victor Alexander, 70 
Victor Alexander Ed- 
ward Paulet, 70 
Morehouse, Mary (Sher- 
wood), 16 
Thomas, 16 
MuUiken, Alfred Henry, 
72 
Helen (Sturges), 72 
Shelton Sturges, 72 
Munson, Horace Dwight, 
70 
Gilbert Dwight, 70, 76 
Isabel, 70 



Index 



83 



Munson, Lucy Sturges Redfield, Deborah (Stur- 

(Potwin), 70, 76 ges), 15 

Mary Burt (Griggs), 70 James, 15 

Sarah, 70, 76 Reed, Dr., 30 



Nichols, Abigail (Stur- 
ges), 21 
Allen, 21 

Nickerson, Samuel M., 61 

Northcote, A. Ernest, 76 
Bertha Elizabeth, 76 
Irma (Weguelin), 76 
Lewis Stafford, 76 
Lucy Isabel, 76 
Oliver Stafford, 76 
Sarah (Munson), 76 

Northwestern National 
Bank of Chicago, 57, 
59, 61. 65, 66, 67 

Nye, Arius, 60 

Frances Rowena, 60 
Rowena (Spencer), 60 

Osborne, Sarah, 14 
Otis, Lavinia, 74 

Parker, George Green, 75 
Inez Luella (Knapp), 

75 
Janette, 69 
Lelia Clarissa, 75 

Perry, Ebenezer, 21 
Eunice (Sturges), 21 
Martha (Sherwood), 21 
Nathaniel, 21 
Sarah, 21, 23, 24, 55 

Richer, Ann, 77 

Susan J. (Brummwell), 

77 
William Henry, 77 

Pinkney, Jane, 20 

Potwin, Anson C, 69 
Cara, 58, 71 
Caroline Ameha, 57, 

58 
Charles Albert, 58, 71 
Charles Wolcott, 58, 70, 

71, 72 
John Stoughton, 57, 58 
Julia Marsh, 58, 70 
Kate Benton, 58, 72 
Lucy Sturges, 58, 70 
Sarah (Sturges), 40, 65, 

58, 70, 71, 72 
Sophia (Marsh), 57, 68 
William S., 69 

Powell, Charlotte, 71 

Prindiville, Capt. John, 
SB 



Sandwich, Earl of, 70 
Sheldon, Nathaniel E., 39 
Sherwood, Buckingham, 
26 

Martha, 21 

Mary, 16 
Steel, James, 39 
Steele, Blanche (Whip- 
ple), 70 

Charles Stetson, 70 

Jennie Franks, 70 
Stevens, Adelaide Whee- 
ler, 71 

Lucy (Beach), 71 

Wheeler, 71 
Stratton, Richard, 15 

Sarah (Sturges), 15 
Sturges, Abigail, 15 

Abigail, 21 

Abigail (Bradley), 16 

Abigail O., 16 

Abigail (Wheeler), 16 

Albert, 38, 55, 61-65, 
68,73 

Albert, 67 

Albert Hale, 64 

Alberta, 57, 69, 70 

Alletta, 64 

Alonzo Walton, 16, 19 

Amanda (Ada), 27, 47 

Amanda (Buckingham), 
26 

Amelia, 22, 40 

Ann (Burr), 14 

Arthur Percy, 64 

Barnabas Lothrop, 21 

Benjamin, 16 

Benton, 62 

Bessie (McLeod), 57, 
58, 69, 70 

Buckingham, 38, 55, 
61-65, 68 

Buckingham & Co., 36, 
56, 61, 63, 64, 68 

Caroline Amelia (Pot- 
win), 57 

Charles Benton, 62 

Charles Mathews, 9, 27 

Christopher, 15, 16 

Clara Delafield, 67, 75 

Cornish & Burn Com- 
pany, 69 

David, 14 

Deborah, 15 



Sturges, Deborah, 16 
Deborah (Barlow), 14, 

15 
Deborah (Lewis), 14 
Dimon, 20, 21, 55 
Dimon, Jr., 22 
Dimon, 26 
Dora, 64 
Eben Perry, 21, 24, 25, 

26, 34, 35, 47 
Ebenezer, 20 
Edward (of Yarmouth, 

Mass.), 14 
Edward, 21 
Edward, 22, 23, 26, 27, 

34, 35 
Edward, 26 
Eliza (Graham), 63 
Elizabeth, 14 
Esther, 16 
Esther, 21 
Esther L., 16 
Ethel, 67, 73, 74 
Eunice, 21 
Flora, 64 
Frances Rowena (Nye), 

60 
Frank, 46, 55, 59, 64, 

68, 69, 76 
Frank, 76 
Frank Hale, 64 
Frank Sturges & Co., 

69 
George, 55, 59, 64-67, 

73-75 
George, Jr., 67, 75 
George Sturges & Co., 

64 
Harold, 60, 72, 73 
Harry Humphrey, 64 
Helen, 60, 72 
Helen, 67, 74, 75 
Henry Hale, 26, 27 
Hezekiah, 16, 17, 19. 

20, 21 
Hezekiah, 22, 23, 33. 

40, 66 
HoUister, 57, 70 
Ida, 64 

James Dwight, 59, 66 
Jane, 16 
Janette Lee, 69 
Jeremiah, 16 
Jerusha Merrick (Hale), 

26, 47 
Jerusha (Thompson), 

14 
John, 13-16 
Jonathan, 13-16 



84 



Index 



Sturges, Jonathan 

(Judge), 13, 14 
Jonathan (of New 

York), 21, 36 
Joseph, 15, 16, 17, 

20 
Judson, 16, 17 
Julia Floyd, 67 
Julia Lee, 69 
Kate, 55, 68 
Kate Graham, 63 
Katy Benton, 63 
Lee, 69, 76 
Lily Benton, 63 
Livingston Monroe, 73 
Lucy, 50, 55, 60, 61 
Lucy (Hale), 30, 31, 37, 

45-52, 55, 58, 60, 61, 

63, 64, 68 
Lucy Hale, 64 
Lucy Hale, 69 
Lucy Hale, 76 
Maria (Allen), 66 
Marion Delafield, 67, 

74 
Mary, 15 

Mary (or Polly), 21 
Mary (or Polly), 21, 

22 
Mary Delafield, 64 
Mary (Delafield), 67, 

68 
Mary (Gardiner), 16 
Mary (Sherwood), 16 
Mary Sturges (Math- 
ews), 27 
Mary Sullivant, 76 
McAllister & Co., 59 
Paul, 64 
Philip, 14 
Preston, 73 
Rifles, 39 
Rosalie, 67, 74 
Rowena Spencer, 60, 

72 
Rowena Spencer, 73 
Samuel, 14 
Samuel, 21 
Sarah, 14 

Sarah, 22, 25, 28, 29 
Sarah, 39, 55, 58, 70- 

72 
Sarah (Osborne), 14 
Sarah (Perry), 21, 23, 

24, 55 



Sturges, Sarah S., 16 
Shelton, 39, 48, 55, 58- 

60, 64, 65, 72 
Shelton, Jr., 60 
Solomon, 16, 17, 19 
Solomon, 21 
Solomon, birth, 13, 22, 
55 

recollections of child- 
hood, 23, 24 

choice of career, 25 

voyage to Chesa- 
peake Bay, 25 

life in Georgetown, 
D. C, 25 

military service, 27 

journey to Ohio, 27, 
28 

partnership with Eb- 
enezer Bucking- 
ham, 29 

journey to New Or- 
leans, 30 

courtship and mar- 
riage, 31, 52 

wedding journey, 45 

growing business, 34 

builds Wabash & 
Erie Canal, 34, 35 

builds Fulton Eleva- 
tor, Chicago, 35 

builds Central Ele- 
vators, 36 

removal to Chicago, 
37 

builds Chicago house, 
37 

death of wife, 37 

founds Solomon Stur- 
ges & Sons, 38 

shattered health, 39 

equips the "Sturges 
Rifles," 39 

visits the army, 39 

death, 40, 55 -• 

estimate oi.his char- 
acter, 40-42 

list of children, 55 
Solomon, 51, 64, 73 
Solomon Sturges & 

Co., Zanesville, 56, 

61 
Solomon Sturges & 

Sons, 88, 56, 61, 63, 

64, 68 



Sturges, Solomon Sturges* 
Sons, 38, 57, 58, 61, 
63, 64, 68 

Stephen Buckingham, 
26, 65 

Susan Rachel (Benton), 
62 

Susannah (Banks), 16 

Theodore, 64 

Thomas, 15 

Virginia, 60 

Wallace Delafield, 67 

Washington Graham, 
63 

William, 34, 37, 48, 55- 
57, 69, 70 

William Spencer, 60, 
72 

William Hollister, 70 

& Burn Manufactur- 
ing Co., 69 

& Co. (Union Stock 
Yards Bank), 61 

& Ellis, 56 
Sullivant, Joseph Mc- 
Dowell, 76 

Mary (Allen), 76 

Mary Allen, 76 

Thomas, Caroline Sophia, 

75 
Thompson, Jerusha, 14 

Van Ness, Phebe, 73 

Wallace, Edith, 67 
Ward, Abigail, 20 

Andrew, 20 

Esther, 20 

Moses, 20 
Welles, Chester O., 22 

Martha, 26, 30, 31, 
55 
Wheeler, Abigail, 16 
Whipple, Blanche, 70 
Williams, Elisha, 25 

Emma Maria, 72 
Wilson, Charles A., 73 
Wilson & Sturges, 73 
Woodbridge, D., 28 

York, Agneta Harriette, 
70 
Charles Philip, Earl of 
Hardwick, 70 



MEMORANDA 



PSQ 23 



